The story
1980 to 1990
In the early 1980s, the tea industry in India was experiencing rising input and labour costs and dwindling margins as well as high taxes. India was facing competition in the world market not just from China, but also from other countries entering the business.
In 1983, Tata Tea bought the stake belonging to the James Finlay group to form the individual entity Tata Tea. In the same year, the company decided to move from the commodities business to consumer branding. The first brand Tata Tea was introduced. This was followed by other brands like Kannan Devan, Agni, Gemini and Chakra Gold. In spite of being the largest market in the world, the concept of branded tea took time to be accepted.
In 1987, Tata Tea set up a fully owned subsidiary, Tata Tea Inc., in the United States.
1990 to 2000
In the 1990s, Tata Tea decided to take its brands into the global markets. It formed an export joint venture with Britain's Tetley Tea in 1992. Other new enterprises included a majority interest in Consolidated Coffee Ltd. (Tata Coffee Ltd.) and a joint venture to manage agricultural estates in Sri Lanka. Tata Tea Inc. in the United States processed and marketed instant tea from its facility in Florida, based on the sourcing of instant tea products out of Munnar and Kerala. In 1993, they entered into a joint venture with Allied Lyons PLC in the UK to form Estate Tata Tetley.
In the mid-1990s, Tata Tea attempted to buy Tetley and the Lankan JVC acquired 51% shareholding in Watawala Plantations Ltd.
In 1997 the company was embroiled in a major scandal known as the "Tata Tapes controversy" which related to funds the company provided to the outlawed United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA), an armed-struggle group operating in Assam.
By 1999, Tata Tea's brands had a combined market share of 25% in India. The company had 74 tea gardens and was producing 6.2 crore kilograms of tea a year, two-thirds of it packaged and branded. Towards the end of the year, the tea business was hit by a drought in much of India. In addition, Russia, once the largest buyer of Indian tea, temporarily withdrew from the market.
2000 to 2010
Tata Tea acquired the Tetley Group (based in the United Kingdom) in 2000. It was a £271 million ($432 million) leveraged buyout. Tata Tea reportedly outbid the American conglomerate Sara Lee in what was described, at the time, as the largest takeover of a foreign company by an Indian company. At the time, Tetley was the world's second-largest tea company after Unilever's Brooke Bond-Lipton and had an annual turnover of £300 million. It was the market leader in Britain and Canada and a popular brand in the United States, Australia and the Middle East.
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Established in 1837, Tetley was the first British tea company to introduce the tea bag to the UK in 1953. The tea bag was followed by the first round tea bag in 1989 and the 'no drip, no mess' drawstring bag in 1997. Tetley now contributes around two-thirds of the total turnover of Tata Tea.
From 2005, Tata Tea began a restructuring exercise to divest direct ownership of plantations in India, a process facilitated by subsidised loans from the World Bank's International Finance Corporation.
In 2006, Tata Tea acquired Eight O'Clock Coffee, a U.S.-based coffee producer from Gryphon Investors for $220m; before being sold to Gryphon, the Eight O'Clock Coffee brand was originally owned by The Great Atlantic & Pacific Tea Company from its beginnings in 1859 to 2003.
The international trade union IUF criticized the company in 2009 for not allowing statutory maternity leave to pregnant tea pluckers, and for locking out 1,000 workers on the Nowera Nuddy Tea Estate in West Bengal for so long that the local government began distributing food coupons for emergency rations to workers and their families. In May 2010, a crop sprayer died of suspected poisoning on a Tata estate in Assam, leading to protests at which two more workers were shot dead by riot police.
2010 to 2019
On 30 January 2012, Tata Consumer Products Limited and Starbucks announced the creation of a 50:50 joint venture called Tata Starbucks Limited, which will own and operate Starbucks outlets branded as Starbucks Coffee "A Tata Alliance" in India. The stores started operating in 2012, launching initially in Delhi and Mumbai. The coffee shops source coffee beans from Tata Coffee, a subsidiary company of Tata Consumer Products Limited.
2019 to present
On 15 May 2019, Tata Chemicals Limited (TCL) announced the de-merger of the Consumer Products Business of TCL and into TGBL through a National Company Law Tribunal ("NCLT") approved scheme of arrangement ("Scheme") to become Tata Consumer. In the beverages business, Tata Consumer brands include Tata Tea, Tetley, Vitax, Eight O’Clock Coffee, Himalayan Natural Mineral Water, Grand Coffee and Joekels. In the food segment, the brands include Tata Salt and Tata Sampann.
Tata Global Beverages Limited (TGBL) and Tata Chemicals Limited (TCL) announced that the Scheme of Arrangement between TGBL and TCL regarding the Consumer Products Business of TCL is now operational, effective from 7 February 2020. Following this, TGBL has been renamed Tata Consumer Products Limited. Tata Consumer Products combines the food and beverages brands, which include Tata Salt, Tata Tea, Tata Sampann, Tetley, Soulfull and Himalayan mineral water, under a single umbrella.
Tata Consumer Products acquired complete control of Tata SmartFoodz Limited from Tata Industries Limited for ₹395 crore (US$41 million) on 12 November 2021.
On 1 May 2022, Tata Consumer Products announced that Tata Coffee would merge with itself as part of a reorganization plan. The company stated that the merger was expected to be completed in late 2023, with shareholders of Tata Coffee receiving 3 shares in Tata Consumer Products for every 10 shares of Tata Coffee. In July 2022, Tata Consumer Products launched premium honey products and flavoured preserves, under the company's Himalayan brand name. Also in July 2022, the company launched plant-based meat products under the brand name, Tata Simply Better.
In January 2024, Tata Consumer acquired Capital Foods (owner of Ching's Secret and Smith & Jones brands) for ₹5,100 crore and Organic India for ₹1,900 crore.
From Wikipedia’s article on Tata Consumer Products, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.5