Honest® Tea Refreshes Glass-Bottle Tea Line To Enhance Connection To Brand’s Heritage & Mission

BETHESDA, Md.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Honest Tea, the top-selling organic bottled tea in the U.S., is refreshing its glass-bottled tea beverage line to deepen and broaden the brand’s mission and impact.

• Fair Trade Certified™ Sugar: All of the varieties sweetened with organic sugar will now be sweetened with Fair Trade Certified, organic sugar to complement the organic and fair trade teas already being used.
• 1% for the Planet: The labels will feature the product line’s new membership in “1% for the Planet,” which commits Honest Tea to contribute the equivalent of at least one percent of the product line’s annual sales to organizations working toward positive environmental change.
• New label graphics: Honest Tea’s glass-bottled labels are being updated to bring to life the images and inspiration behind each tea variety, as well as link more closely to the broader Honest beverage portfolio. Some of the major changes include highlighting the visuals showcased in the brand’s iconic “T” and introducing a new brand logo that will be used across all Honest beverages.
• New variety: Radiant Raspberry Tea – Fair Trade Certified, organic black tea from Southern India, is mixed with organic raspberry juice, blackberry leaves, and other ingredients, and sweetened with Fair Trade Certified organic cane sugar.

“Our glass-bottled line continues to be the top-selling bottled tea in the natural channel, and even as we’re having one of our best sales years to date, we felt now was the time to double-down on our mission,” said co-founder & TeaEO Seth Goldman.

Fair trade premiums for the organic cane sugar help fund community development projects in Paraguay chosen by farmers, including healthcare services, farming equipment, higher-quality schools, and microloans. Honest Tea was the first company to introduce a Fair Trade Certified bottled tea in 2003, and all of Honest Tea’s tea varieties have used Fair Trade Certified tea leaves since 2011. In anticipation of the move to Fair Trade Certified organic sugar, Goldman went to Paraguay earlier this year to meet with Fair Trade sugar farmers. (View video here)

In conjunction with Honest Tea’s partnership with “1% for the Planet,” the organization’s logo now appears prominently on the back panel. In 2013, non-profit organizations benefiting from Honest Tea’s contributions include Fair Trade USA, National Parks Foundation, FoodCorps, Bethesda Green, and Trees For The Future, among others.

“We are thrilled to make the switch to Fair Trade Certified sugar and sign on with 1% for the Planet,” said Goldman. “To mark the occasion, for the first time in 16 years, we (nervously) took steps to refresh the look of our much-loved glass line. We surprised ourselves with the new label design – a fun, eye-catching way to expand on our story.”

Inspired by the brand’s first bottles from 1998, the labels were designed in-house using the iconic “T” imagery as a starting point. The art was developed in collaboration with an oil painter and expanded around the label for an artistic interpretation of each variety’s origin and spirit. The colorful frames surround a new off-white parchment background.

Radiant Raspberry Tea, the newest “Just a Tad Sweet®” beverage, is 60 calories per bottle and will be available at natural and specialty grocers throughout the country starting in October 2014.

ABOUT Honest^® TEA

Honest Tea seeks to create and promote great-tasting, healthier, organic beverages and extend economic opportunities to communities in need. Founded in 1998 in Bethesda, MD, Honest Tea is the nation's top-selling organic bottled tea company, specializing in beverages that are Just a Tad Sweet®. Honest Tea’s product lines include: ready-to-drink bottled teas, Honest® Ade and Honest® Kids organic thirst quenchers, Honest® Freshly Brewed iced tea, and Honest® Fizz zero calorie sodas. All teas and juice drinks are USDA Organic and all tea leaf varieties are Fair Trade Certified™. In addition to being recognized by the United States Healthful Food Council for helping change the food landscape, Honest Tea is a multi-year winner of awards from the Alliance for Workplace Excellence and a Montgomery County, MD Certified Green Business. Honest Tea has won Men’s Health “Best Bottled Tea” for six years and has been included in Women’s Health magazine’s “125 Best Packaged Foods for Women” for the last three years in a row. Honest Tea is an independent operating unit of The Coca-Cola Company. For more information: www.honesttea.com.