Finding A Nice Cup Of Tea

Creeping Breakstonism.

Breakstone's is a small name owned by a huge multinational agribusiness, still trading on a folksy familiarity that is long gone if it ever existed at all.  We know it happened.  Does it still happen?  Can we watch evolution in progress?

Friend of the FSB, Leonard Stoehr, may have found an example.

See?  It's a great company.  Because they're
having fun right now.

Sweet Leaf Iced Teas hasn't been around for very long, but they've got a great story.  Clayton Christopher, a former cyclist, got the idea in 1997 to make a bottled tea that tasted better than the available brands.  He wanted it to be as good as his grandmother, Mimi's.  With garden hoses, pillow cases, a used van and a loan from his dad, he bottled his iced teas and begged shop owners for shelf-space.  

Clayton was joined in 1999 by his childhood friend, David Smith.  The brand took off at the 2002 Austin City Limits music festival.  Since then, they've upgraded their headquarters several times, grown to 45 or so employees, grown their line to a dozen products and counting, and begun distributing teas and lemonades worldwide.

But they're still a crazy, young, upstart of a company, as the hand-drawn look of their website invites us to think.  They believe in "laughter, high fives, and good music."  They blog about music festivals.  They delight in telling us that employee Elizabeth Barber's beagle is named Bentley, although they never get around to describing what EB's job is.  And they heavily invoke the image of granny, who's picture is their logo.

Grandma be fat.

Now, you can probably tell that a lot of the Sweet Leaf brand image is hokum.  For instance, they tell us that granny's recipe called for "pure cane sugar."  It's amazing that granny, all those years ago, would accurately be able to predict the consumer trend away from high-fructose corn syrup in the late 2000's.  And no matter how much their employees love wholesome parties and alt concerts, they must be getting some work done.

Some information about the company is just plain missing.  For instance, Sweet Leaf magically went from being brewed in a garage to not being brewed anywhere - the website makes no mention of where their products are made.  Likely, they'd been bottled by contract-factories in different parts of the country for several years.

And some information on the website is a flat-out lie.  Founder Clayton Christopher is still listed as an employee (or "tea-mate" as the website calls him).  Under their Frequently Asked Questions appears this:

QUESTION:
Is Sweet Leaf Tea a public company?
ANSWER:
No, Sweet Leaf Tea is a privately held company.

That's not true.  The truth is, however, there on the website.  It's not easy to find and it's buried under a whole lot of nonsense.  But it's there.  What makes this a case of Creeping Breakstonism?

Sweet Leaf Tea is wholly owned by Nestlé.

Nestlé:  the largest food corporation on earth.  If you have ever eaten, you've eaten Nestlé.  Here's a partial list of their brands.

I do not agree with this website.  But the graphic is hell-a-cool.

Sweet Leaf benefited from a large investment from Nestlé, turning over 35% of its shares in exchange for $15,600,000.00 in 2009.

Founder Clayton Christopher took to the company's blog to explain the decision:

Having Nestle help us with our distribution it will put our brand on more shelves and give more consumers the choice of buying a better bottled tea.  They are also going to help us reduce our bottle weight which is great for the environment (Nestle uses less plastic in their bottles than any other beverage company on the planet).  If it takes letting the “Big Guys” own a piece of our company in order to give consumers healthier and tastier choices then I think it’s absolutely worth it.

He didn't exactly mention that he had been paid millions.  And the multinational wasn't "helping" with distribution so much as it was "owning" Sweet Leaf's entire distribution network.  In fact,  Nestlé made more than a few small changes, including installing their own man as president of the company.  But Clayton did make a bold statement:

If they buy the rest of our company years down the road and change our recipe (won’t happen under my watch) then David and I will start another tea company and do it all over again. 

In other news, Nestlé bought out the rest of the company.  Also, Clayton  Christopher ended his watch.  The Nestlé guy is now the president and CEO.

Seriously, some people really have a problem with Nestlé.

Now, let's make a couple things clear:  Sweat Leaf teas seem to be good products.  They won awards from Self magazine and BevNet.  People are buying them.  Also, the company really was started by two best friends with a van and a dream.  Furthermore, Nestlé is not evil.  Nor has Nestlé's ownership affected the quality of the beverages - both awards were won after the conglomerate's investment.  And they don't seem to have replaced the cane sugar with HFCS,

But Breakstonism is upon us.  The world's largest food distributor is pretending it's a small iced tea company.  The myth of Sweet Leaf remains firmly in place, with no mention of the food giant on the company's front page and a slideshow of the company's history that stops in 2008.  And Nestlé is free to change the recipe, add or subtract flavors, limit or expand markets and generally do whatever they want.

Will there be changes?  Eighty years from now, will the product be the same as all other mass-produced teas?  Will Clayton Christopher become Sam Breakstone?

What do you think?