Will Honest Tea be Corrupted by Coke?
Earlier this month we announced that Coca-Cola was making a 40 percent investment in Honest Tea. Though most of the feedback from consumers has been positive -- "finally, I won't have to drive two...
View ArticleThe More We Sell, The More Good We Do
Here's another exchange with Julie, the disappointed Honest Tea customer who is critical of the deal we made with Coke. Julie wrote: Coca-Cola's extensive business network and far-reaching...
View ArticleOrganics Need to be Democratized
Here's another exchange with Julie, the Honest Tea customer who is disappointed that we made a deal with Coke.Julie wrote: By partnering with Coca-Cola, you may gain a net increase of customers...
View Article"We Want Coke To Be More Like Honest Tea"
Here's another exchange with Julie, the Honest Tea customer who is disappointed that we made a deal with Coke.Julie wrote: Optimists within your company have asserted that Honest Tea is not...
View Article"I Will No Longer Purchase Honest Tea Products"
Here's another exchange with Julie, the Honest Tea customer who is disappointed that we made a deal with Coke. Julie wrote: I have no doubt that you have already asked yourself some of these...
View Article"I Hope Your Values and Integrity Inspire Coke"
Here's my last exchange with Julie, the Honest Tea customer who is disappointed that we made a deal with Coke. Julie wrote: Hi Seth,I very much appreciate your articulate and personal...
View ArticleWas Partnering with Coke the only Option?
Here's a very legitimate question I got from a reader named Renee in response to my recent exchange with Julie about Honest Tea's recent deal with Coke:I found the arguments on both sides of this...
View ArticleSo, Where's the Bridge?
Last month I had the chance to visit one of the tea gardens that supplies us with our chun mee (translation: "spring's eyebrows"), a variety used in most of our green tea blends, including our new...
View ArticleRing The Gong!
Even though Honest Tea has enjoyed an annual compound growth rate of 66% for the past ten years, there's never been a day or a week where I've walked in and said, "Wow! We're growing." Until...
View ArticleHonest Tea and Coke Begin to Work Together
Bethesda Green, the local sustainability initiative we helped launch in January, recently unveiled the first public recycling bin in Bethesda. At the time we launched Bethesda Green, I quoted the...
View ArticleBarack Obama Drinks Honest Tea (But We're Not Elitist!)
We had some fun this week when our Black Forest Berry was mentioned on the front page of The New York Times as the drink of choice for presidential candidate Barack Obama. Our office gets requests...
View ArticleThe Value of the Right Partner
My co-founder Barry Nalebuff celebrated his 50th birthday last week. Since we started the company almost exactly 10 years ago, the occasion gave me the chance to reflect on our partnership. I...
View ArticleJust A Tad Bittersweet
Growth often has a bittersweet element to it. Last month, we announced plans to switch the distribution of our plastic bottles for most of the West Coast to Coca-Cola Enterprises (CCE), the largest...
View ArticleFor Honest Tea, Coke Is It
We've recently hired more than a dozen new marketing and salespeople to support our expansion out West with Coke's distribution network. I saw our newest team members in action this past week at...
View ArticleThe Customer Is Always Powerful
We met last week with Sally Greenberg, the new head of the National Consumers League to discuss some ideas about how we could inform and mobilize consumers around issues of social responsibility. It...
View ArticleWhy Change Comes in Many Shapes and Sizes
A few years ago, an article that mentioned Co-op America and Sam's Club and Wal-Mart in the same paragraph was usually about activists protesting the nation's largest retailer. And yet, as I prepared...
View ArticleHow Do You Grow an Organic Fish?
I had lunch recently with representatives of our certifier, Pennsylvania Certified Organic, who were in town for a meeting of the National Organic Standards Board. Among the questions the board...
View ArticleA Seat at the Transition Table
Earlier this week, I had the chance to participate in a discussion at the Obama-Biden Transition Office with other leaders of the sustainable business community. The topic was setting an agenda to...
View ArticlePromoting from Within
Despite all the grim unemployment data, we've been on a hiring spree for the past two years -- from 23 full-time employees in 2007, to 52 last year, and 95 today.As our headcount has quadrupled,...
View ArticleA Crash Course in Social Entrepreneurship, Part 1
Every week, I talk with lots of entrepreneurs, aspiring entrepreneurs, or students of entrepreneurship. I recently had a lengthy correspondence with a group of California MBA students, which inspired...
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