This month, Corporate Essentials has focused on highlighting just a few of the awesome women-owned businesses that we work with in honor of Women’s History Month. Teatulia CEO Linda Appel Lipsius is another great example of a successful entrepreneur who remains environmentally-conscious.
In 2019, now more than ever, companies pride themselves on pursuing environmentally-friendly practices. It can be a strong marketing tool, but it also shows a willingness to adapt to new expectations. It also demonstrates a drive to reduce our harmful impact on the planet. Perhaps no other company is a better representative of this than Teatulia, a tea-focused business that champions its many environmentally-conscious decisions. Teatulia is Fair Trade-certified. In addition to this, it is Rainforest Alliance-certified, and all of its products are USDA organic. Each of these are important principles that have remained at the forefront of the company’s focus, ever since CEO Linda Appel Lipsius co-founded the company in 2006.
Teatulia CEO Linda Appel Lipsius was asked to participate in an interview about her company, in which she spoke about the company’s origin, and the advice she would give to prospective female entrepreneurs.
Reading about Teatulia’s history, it sounds like improving the environment through tea cultivation was, and still is, a big focus for the company. What was your inspiration for pursuing entrepreneurship? Did you know from the start you wanted an environmentally-conscious business?
“My business partners conceived of and manage the garden. So I have to be sure to give credit where credit is due. They were the ones who started the garden, cultivated it, and built it to be a regenerative farm. Then I came into the picture a few years down the road, and I’m telling the story, but they get all the credit for the concept and beautiful execution.
I come from an entrepreneurial family, so my parents have always had their own companies. I’m not the one who grew up with the ‘mom and dad, working 9-5’ kind of thing, which means that I’m fairly risk-tolerant as a result. Running a company, you wear about 20 hats a day, which suits my personality really well. Even though I didn’t necessarily come up with the idea of the garden, I very, very passionately believe in what we’re doing and the foundations of it. Being able to lead a company that is so true to my values is just lucky and wonderful – being able to work with people who share the same values as you.”
A majority of Teatulia’s tea is harvested from a single garden in Northern Bangladesh called the Kazi & Kazi Tea Estate Limited. How did you discover this area? Why did you choose to work with it?
“My partners were friends with my husband and I. We’d always been talking about this thing that they started, and we had decided to sell our previous company, and when they said they were ready to bring our tea to the states, I told them ‘I’ll help you guys out.’ Honestly, it kind of found me.”
When did Teatulia begin to amass a large following? Success can’t be found overnight… Can it?
“Tea is a challenging category in the states, not everyone drinks it. It’s been kind of a steady build. We launched with Whole Foods, and the way we promote it is very demo-intensive, very sampling-intensive, and tea training. One of the biggest challenges we have is that people don’t know a lot about tea. We don’t have to, but we choose to spend a lot of time on education so people understand how and why what we’re doing is so different. Any chance we get to do that and talk to people in the industry, we take.
We sell into groceries, but then there’s food service. The restaurant and foodservice piece is really effective because it gives more of an educational opportunity to the guest or consumer that is spending more time with the product. Once people learn about us, they learn how different we are, they learn why you don’t want to drink tea that’s laced with pesticides, which is what most of the industry is. We’re launching the tea sodas now, which is a whole different thing. The response has been incredible, it’s got a much broader appeal. That’s been a pretty quick uptake because it’s got the healthy handle of tea, but it’s a soda. It’s delicious and they’re fun.”
You recently launched the tea soda line. Where’d the idea for it come from?
“From the beginning, we served hot teas, but I was really committed to also selling something that was much more accessible. So we created these hand-crafted tea sodas. And they were, from the beginning, a huge hit. Because they’re slightly sweet and really delicious. We always thought about putting them into cans or bottles from six or seven years ago, but we weren’t ready as a company to do that. Everyone I tell that we’re launching it goes, “Finally?” And so, the time was just right.
Organizationally, we’re in a place where we can do it, because it’s a much more complicated product than just the dry tea. We’re so excited about it. There’s so much excitement, and this [tea soda] pulls the best things from multiple categories.”
Where do you see Teatulia in the next five years?
“We want to grow from a business perspective, but we’re also very much an impact business. We’re a B-Corp. We’re organic, Rainforest Alliance-certified. We also want to be larger so that we have a bigger platform to be able to set an example for other businesses. All of our packaging is minimum-waste packaging, and our products are totally clean. We want to have a bigger voice for consumers to make better choices. When they read the back of cans of tea soda, they go, ‘Oh, they’re an organic, ethically sourced tea. That’s neat, let me learn more about it.’ We just really want to have a bigger voice in the industry to, hopefully, inspire positive change. That’s very much from my heart, what I’m working towards.”
What advice would you give to women looking to start their own business?
“I think some advice to anybody would be that you really gotta love your product. It’s so much work, it’s so much heartache and joy at the same time. You have to be passionate about it. Another thing I’m really big on is networking and talking to everybody about your product or business. I think a lot of people are really scared that someone is going to steal their idea, but you’re going to learn so much more from somebody you talk to if you’re open to it. If you’ve got an idea, earn your seat at the table. Show up, and be really confident that you deserve to be there. Speak with an authoritative tone of voice.”
Teatulia’s most recent product, organic tea soda, is available for purchase online. If you’d like to read about another awesome woman-owned business, feel free to check out our earlier post about Nancy Kalish, founder & CEO of Rule Breaker snacks.
