 | |
| Type | Iced tea |
|---|---|
| Manufacturer | Honest Tea, Inc / The Coca-Cola Company |
| Distributor | The Coca-Cola Company |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Introduced | 1998 |
| Discontinued | 2022 |
| Website | www |
Honest Tea (U.S.) was a bottled organic tea company based in Bethesda, Maryland. It was founded in 1998 by Seth Goldman and Barry Nalebuff. The company is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Coca-Cola Company.
Honest Tea was founded in 1998 by Seth Goldman, a graduate of Harvard and the Yale School of Management who got the idea to found a beverage company while he was at business school. There were two key ideas behind the company: to bring beverages to market that were organic and not as heavily sweetened, and to conduct the business using fair trade principles. [1] Goldman and one of his Yale professors, Barry Nalebuff, conceived the idea for the company and raised $500,000 in startup funds from friends and family. [1]
The first order for Honest Tea was from Fresh Fields, an East Coast natural grocery chain that was later acquired by Whole Foods Market. [1] Honest Tea was available on Independence Air flights. [2] By 2006, Honest Tea had revenue of $13.5 million and was selling about 1.5 million cases a year. [1]
The Coca-Cola Company purchased a 40-percent stake of the U.S. company at $43 million in 2008. [3] It bought the rest of the company in 2011. [4]
In 2009, Honest Tea US received an unpaid endorsement when The New York Times reported that it was President Barack Obama's preferred beverage. [5]
A separate small company, Springleaf, controls the Honest Tea trademark in Australia. Honest Tea lost an attempt to claim the rights to the phrase in Australia in 2007. [6] In 2015, Annabel Young won her case against Coca-Cola in Australia as the original brand name holder, retaining the Honest Tea brand. [7]
In 2021, Coca-Cola introduced Honest Yerba Mate. Yerba mate is a traditional beverage in South America, brewed from leaves and stems of the yerba mate plant. [8]
On May 23, 2022, Coca-Cola announced it would stop carrying Honest tea beverages as of December 31, 2022. [1] [9] Coca-Cola decided it would only carry two brands of tea, Gold Peak Tea and Peace Tea, because they are "best positioned to meet consumer preferences for high-quality brewed teas with different levels of sweetness and flavor". Coca-Cola expected that discontinuing the Honest tea line would allow it to "prioritize production and distribution" of other beverages, particularly in light of ongoing supply-chain issues that have caused Coca-Cola to be unable to meet consumer demand for Gold Peak. [10] Coca-Cola said it plans to continue carrying its line of Honest Kids organic fruit juices. [9] Honest tea is one of approximately 200 brands that Coca-Cola decided to discontinue carrying between 2020 and 2022. [11]
Following Coca-Cola’s announcement that it would discontinue Honest Tea products, Honest Tea founders Seth Goldman and Barry Nalebuff returned to the bottled tea business alongside celebrity chef Spike Mendelsohn with the launch of Just Ice Tea in September 2022. [12]
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The Coca-Cola Company is an American multinational corporation founded in 1892. It produces Coca-Cola. The drink industry company also manufactures, sells, and markets other non-alcoholic beverage concentrates and syrups, and alcoholic beverages. The company's stock is listed on the NYSE and is part of the DJIA and the S&P 500 and S&P 100 indexes.
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Coca-Cola Amatil Limited (CCA) was an Australian bottler of non-alcoholic beverages that existed from 1904 to 2021, when it merged with Coca-Cola European Partners to form Coca-Cola Europacific Partners. It was one of the largest bottlers of non-alcoholic ready-to-drink beverages in the Asia-Pacific region and one of the world's five major Coca-Cola bottlers. CCA operated in six countries—Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Fiji and Samoa. The company also bottled beer and coffee.
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Blue Sky Beverage Company was a beverage company that produced soft drinks and energy drinks. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Monster Beverage Corporation. The company was established in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 1980, where it remained until it was purchased by Monster in 2000. Coca-Cola North America took ownership of Blue Sky Sodas, Hansen’s Juice Products, Hansen’s Natural Sodas, Hubert’s Lemonade, Peace Tea and other non-energy drink brands as part of Coke’s partnership with Monster Beverage Corp on Jun 12, 2015. Blue Sky Beverage Company now operates out of Corona, California. The southwestern look and feel of the artwork on the soda cans is reminiscent of the company's roots in New Mexico.
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Matte Leão is a Brazilian infusion and tea brand, now owned by The Coca-Cola Company. The spelling Matte is archaic, but preserved in the trademark; the currently correct Portuguese spelling for the herb and the derived beverage is mate. Matte Leão offers a range of over 100 types of infusions.
Reyes Holdings, LLC is an American food and beverage distributor and bottler that ranks as the 6th largest privately held company in the United States, with annual sales in excess of $40B USD. Operations span 18 countries in North, Central and South America, as well as Europe, the Middle East and Asia Pacific. Reyes Holdings subdivisions include Reyes Beverage Group, the largest beer distributor in the United States, Martin Brower, McDonald's largest global distributor and Reyes Coca-Cola Bottling, a Midwest and West Coast bottler and distributor. The company is based in Rosemont, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago.
Seth Goldman is an American businessman. He is the former CEO of Honest Tea which he co-founded in 1998 with his former business professor, Barry Nalebuff. Goldman is the executive chairman of Beyond Meat, a plant-based protein company based in El Segundo, California.
