The founders of Teapigs have rolled out a new everyday tea brand.
Called Spill, the brand would seek to “bridge the gap between mainstream and speciality tea and lifts the lid on farmer payments”.
After a limited DTC launch last summer, packs have landed in select Waitrose stores and on Ocado (rsp: £6.25/80 bags).
“Whilst we’ve seen premiumisation of everyday coffee, cereal, bread, beer and even toilet roll, our everyday tea has got cheaper over the years, with decades of price wars and promotions across two or three big players,” said Spill co-founder Louise Cheadle.
As a result, everyday tea had “come to taste ‘meh’”, leading UK shoppers to drink less of it and smallholder farms that grow it to “mostly live in poverty”, Cheadle said.
Spill was “a premium-quality everyday tea that tastes noticeably better” whilst paying farmers more, claimed Cheadle. At 8p per bag, the brew sits between most everyday tea (costing 2.3p per teabag on average) and speciality tea (20p-25p per teabag).
“We want to change how people think about tea. We drink three cups of it a day but don’t give it much thought,” said Cheadle. “So we’ve made an everyday tea that people will enjoy drinking. It pays farmers more, and it’s still affordable enough to drink everyday. If you’re going to do something three times a day, you should feel good about it.”
Spill paid smallholder farmers that grew its tea 50% over the Fairtrade average, plus an additional $0.50/kg directly, Cheadle explained. By being transparent about its pricing, Spill hoped to raise awareness of and help tackle the issue of poverty among tea growers.
“Our thinking is that if more people started asking and sharing what the smallholder farmer is paid, we’ll be a step closer to tackling this problem,” Cheadle added.
Alongside Spill co-founder Sofia Buttarazzi, Cheadle left Teapigs in 2022 after the brand was fully integrated into Tata Consumer Products.
The Indian consumer goods giant has owned the brand since it was created in 2006, but had previously left its founding team to run the business as a standalone entity.
Ethics is swiftly becoming the new frontier in tea, with suppliers seeking to emphasise their commitment towards better and more sustainable sourcing practices.
Last year, Typhoo unveiled its new ‘Fear Free’ blend, after claiming to have “radically transformed” its supply chain to tackle the issue of sexual violence against women working on tea plantations.
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