In May 2007, Unilever became the first company to commit to sourcing all its tea in a sustainable manner. Lipton still owns plantations in East Africa ( Kericho, Kenya and Mufindi, Tanzania). In a number of markets, including Japan, Russia and Australia, the company is advertising the benefits of theanine, which has psychoactive properties. Lipton's owner Ekaterra sells PG-Tips tea in the UK, and does not retail any Lipton-branded products except Lipton Ice Tea which is still part of Unilever. These include green teas, flavoured black teas, herbal teas, Lipton Linea (a 'slimming tea') in Europe, and Lipton Milk Tea in various Asian markets.

Īpart from the usual black leaves tea (with the long-standing Lipton Yellow Label brand), the company markets many other varieties, both as leaf and ready-to-drink beverages.

Lipton Yellow Label is blended from about 20 different teas. Lipton teas are a blend selected from many different plantations around the world, from well-known producing countries including Sri Lanka, India, Kenya, and China. Present day Dambatenne Tea Factory, Thomas Lipton's first tea plantation located in Badulla, Uva Province, Sri Lanka Hundreds of new commercially produced varieties of dips were later introduced in the U.S. In the 1950s in the United States, Lipton ran an advertisement campaign promoting French onion dip prepared at home using Lipton's French onion soup mix, thus helping to popularize chips and dip. Unilever no longer tests their products on animals unless required to by governments as part of their regulatory requirements. According to the animal rights organization, Unilever decided to end the practice of Lipton products after receiving more than 40,000 appeals from PETA supporters and days before PETA made plans to launch its 'Lipton CruelTEA' campaign. In 2011, PETA criticized Unilever for conducting and funding experiments on rabbits, pigs and other animals in an attempt to make human health claims about the tea's ingredients. The tea powder, which used Chinese milk powder as its raw ingredient, was recalled after the company's internal checks found traces of melamine in the powder. ĭue to the 2008 Chinese milk scandal, food giant Unilever started recalling its Lipton milk tea powder in Hong Kong and Macau on 30 September 2008. PepsiCo and Unilever each control 50 percent of the shares of these joint ventures. PLI was expanded in September 2007 to include a number of large European markets. This was followed in 2003 by a second joint venture, Pepsi-Lipton International (PLI), covering many non-United States markets. In 1991, Unilever created a first joint venture with PepsiCo, the Pepsi Lipton Partnership, for the marketing of ready to drink (bottled and canned) teas in North America.

The Lipton tea business was acquired by consumer goods company Unilever in a number of separate transactions, starting with the purchase of the United States and Canadian Lipton business in 1938 and completed in 1972 when Unilever bought the remainder of the global Lipton business from Allied Suppliers. He arranged packaging and shipping at low cost, and sold his tea in packets by the pound (454g), half-pound (227g), and quarter-pound (113g), with the advertising slogan: 'Direct from the tea gardens to the teapot.' Lipton teas were an immediate success in the United States. In 1890 Lipton purchased tea gardens in Ceylon, now Sri Lanka, from where he packaged and sold the first Lipton tea. Sales had doubled from £40 million in the late 1870s to £80 million by the mid-1880s. One such item was tea, a rare and expensive luxury at the time. Shortly after opening his shop Thomas Lipton began travelling the world for new items to stock. Allied was acquired by Argyll Foods in 1982 the supermarket business was rebranded as Presto during the 1980s.ĭevelopment Lipton advertisement of 1926 Lipton's became a supermarket chain focused on small towns. The group traded in the high street under various names, but was registered on the UK stock market as Allied Suppliers. In 1929, the Lipton grocery retail business was one of the companies that merged with Home and Colonial Stores, Maypole Dairy Company, Vyes & Boroughs, Templetons, Galbraiths & Pearks to form a food group with more than 3,000 shops. In 1871, Thomas Lipton (1848–1931) of Glasgow, Scotland, used his small savings to open his own shop, and by the 1880s the business had grown to more than 200 shops. For the personal history of Thomas Lipton, see Thomas Lipton.

Lipton brisk ice tea