After expressing heartbreak over Coca-Cola’s decision to spike the Honest Tea line, co-founders Seth Goldman and Barry Nalebuff have decided to return to the bottled tea business alongside celebrity Chef Spike Mendelsohn beginning late 2022. The organic tea line will be the latest addition to Eat the Change, the planet-friendly snack (and now beverage) company founded by Goldman and Mendelsohn in 2020.
The news for Eat the Change’s expansion into the bottle tea space follows Coca-Cola’s announcement to discontinue Honest Tea (read full statement here). Goldman and Nalebuff founded Honest Tea in Bethesda, Md., in 1998 with the mission to create great-tasting, lightly sweetened, organic and fair trade certified beverages.
“The overwhelming response on LinkedIn over the past two weeks have taught me several things,” Goldman said. “The first is a true commitment to the values underlying Honest Tea really counts – it makes a difference to our consumers, our suppliers, our employees and our partners in the natural foods world.
“The second learning is that the community of people who Honest Tea touched and inspired was even larger, and more passionate, than we hoped. Lastly, our Organic and Fair Trade suppliers deserve to be treated better. So we are bringing back many of the same key team members that launched Honest Tea to introduce a line of organic and Fair Trade certified bottled tea from Eat the Change.”
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