Honest Tea

I love reading success stories and Honest Tea is one of them.

  

 

Ready-to-Drink [RTD] Teas account for more than 50% of tea's market share and has experienced the largest growth.   Co-founders Seth Goldman and Barry Nalebuff teamed up to create Honest Tea in 1998.  They arrived at the name because their tea is made with real tea leaves, not lower quality dust and fannings.

 

Seth began brewing batches of tea in his kitchen.  Five weeks later he brought thermoses of tea and a recycled bottle with a mock-up label to Whole Foods Markets and the buyer ordered 15,000 bottles, and as they say, the rest is history!

 

In 2011 the Coca-Cola Company purchased Honest Tea, bringing them into the Coke family as an independent operating unit.

 

I recently read an article about an experiment Honest Tea conducted, called the "Honest Cities social experiment."   The question was posed, "Where do the most honest Americans live?   To find out, Honest Tea sat up unattended beverage kiosks in 12 American cities across the country.  The stands had boxes where people could deposit a dollar bill into, in exchange for an Honest Tea beverage, but there were no consequences if they didn't pay.

 

[Internet Photo]

 

Chicago was named the most honest city after 99% of its residents paid for their beverages.  New York was the least honest city with only 86% of its residences paying for the beverages.

 

Turns out, Americans [or at least Americans who like Honest Tea] are pretty honest.

 

Full results:

Chicago:  99%

Boston:    97%

Seattle:    97%

Dallas:     97%

Atlanta:   96%

Philadelphia:  96%

Cincinnati:  95%

San Francisco:  93%

Miami:    92%

Washington, DC:  91%

Los Angeles:  88%

New York:  86%

 

Hummm... I wonder where Detroit would have ranked had they placed kiosks there???

 

Honest Tea donated all of the money collected, nearly $5,000, to two worthy endeavors,  and matched the amount.