Tuesday April 20, 2010 | 2 comments
There is plenty to be skeptical and worried about in the business world, but the tea industry seems to have its share of altruism to balance out the greed and aggression that define today’s international commercial scene. I wonder if tea business owners will continue to cultivate this altruism, so that as the industry grows, they can reap the dividends of investment in a better world.
I started my morning tour of the news with a story about a coal ship that ran into the Great Barrier Reef while on an illegal route from Australia to China, causing some four tons of heavy fuel oil to leak into the protected reserve and popular tourist destination. Unfortunately, stories about corporations taking shortcuts at the public’s and Earth’s expense are common – so common that journalists have started giving regular updates (see, for instance, “This week in comically evil corporate behavior,” by Jonathan Hiskes).
So far, in my job covering the specialty tea trade, I hear at least as much news of business people trying to make the world a better place as of evil executives applying a take-no-prisoners philosophy to corporate growth.
In recent weeks, I’ve reported on a Tucson company being financially rewarded for its commitment to supporting small farmers at countries of origin; a new Pennsylvania tea company whose business model is built on educating and employing children and women in Kenya; and various efforts U.S. tea companies made to help victims of the Haiti earthquake. I’m currently at work on two more such heartening stories – one about a Texas RTD maker whose mission is to offer healthy beverages to school children, and the other about a Vancouver company whose tea sales raise money for community projects in Nepal.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m a journalist, carefully taught to be skeptical. I know there’s plenty of corruption going on in the tea world too. (Take, for instance, the misdeeds only hinted at in the recent USDA report on organics.) But my instincts and experience tell me the budding specialty tea business has attracted a higher-than-average percentage of people who genuinely care about the welfare of the world and the human race.
Whether I’m right or wrong, the real question is whether all the charity will continue as the industry grows, businesses boom, and big money starts to flow. We’re only starting to see major outside investment in tea companies. It will undoubtedly increase as the economy improves and consumers start spending again. With outside investment come stockholders, boards of directors, bottom-line interests…
It will be interesting to see whether the tea world’s investors in the future of the planet and its peoples survive this. And if so, how they pull off a trick that seems to have eluded so many others.
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I hope you are correct, Heidi; however, as VC groups, franchising and other quick funding/fast growth methods start happening in the specialty tea world, odds are we will see the same things we see in other industries. Fast growth seems to be equated with better concept when it is not necessarily the case. There are penny stock-funded companies, companies that never should have franchised so quickly, inferior concepts headed up by people with money connections, etc., and this is just the way it is in the real world of ‘business’ at large. However, I do think that the specialty tea biz owners I have met, with few exceptions, do seem to really love what they do and care about the product. Again…hope you are correct.
I am confident that the tea industry will continue to maintain a balanced perspective on the needs of the less fortunate. Tea itself is a meditative reflective beverage, and one that calls upon its consumers to have a respectful heart.
Tea farming throughout much of the world is still a family-run business. Those of us who participate in the distribution channel are keenly aware of the costs (both in time and in money) required to continue to produce this simple yet elegant leaf in a world economy.
Even when it comes to the specialty retail brands that have emerged most recently for the broader consumer market place, I sense there’s a continued humbleness in the sector which allows retailers and consumers alike to be even more aware of how their purchasing choices can affect local economies.
Can we do more? Of course we can. But thanks to posting such as yours, we each learn to respond actively to the passions we develop as we communicate with our closest friends and relatives.
Lastly, the new start-up clients we speak with have no visions of global domination. They simply believe the world would be a better place if we all drank more tea and took a moment to breathe.
Ron
Kopius Teas