Teatulia, an organic tea company with its CEO and cofounder Linda Appel Lipsius isn’t just banking on changing consumer preferences to sell their product, she’s confident the product – and its story – sells itself.
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Lipsius in 2006, started helping out her friend, Kazi Anis Ahmed, on his family’s organic tea garden in Bangladesh. She began educating restaurant and grocery operators about how the tea is cultivated and distributed and the supply chain that makes it happen. She gained confidence in Teatulia’s story specifically because it was different.
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The 3,000-acre tea garden farm located in the Teatulia region of Northern Bangladesh. At the time it was created, a practice called “rock lifting” was occurring, which ruins the topsoil and, essentially, turns the region into a desert.
“My partners saw what was happening and realized they could reverse the environmental degradation with a tea garden, while also employing thousands in a poverty-stricken community.”
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Shortly after, her partners created a cattle-lending program that provides the tea garden with compost while supporting women in the community through a cattle cooperative. Simply put, the cows produce the dung, which is the currency of the cooperative, while the co-op members get to keep the fresh milk and any calves that are born. Once a cow is paid off, the women own it outright and can sell the cow to buy land, send their children to college or buy more cows.
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The program is a win-win. It puts a productive asset into the hands of the women in the community and it illustrates why our tea garden was established – to provide jobs and restore the environment.That’s the story that sells the tea, she says. So far, it’s worked pretty well.
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Consumers now, especially younger ones, want transparency and authenticity and farm-to-table and real stories about where their food comes from. “Our story is sticky because there’s emotional resonance to it. You’re not just drinking our tea, you’re supporting a community. I believe that gives us a competitive advantage.” Lipsius said.
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