Tetley, the world’s second largest tea brand, is using Facebook to connect workers on a Malawi tea estate with consumers in an effort to promote the Rainforest Alliance certification process.
The Farmers First Hand initiative will initially feature the Lujeri tea estate and coincides with the launch of the first Tetley tea packs to carry the Rainforest Alliance green frog seal. Tea from Rainforest Alliance Certified farms will be in Tetley packs on UK supermarket shelves in April followed by a Canadian launch in the summer and US, Australia and mainland Europe launches from 2012. The initiative will gradually expand to tea estates in other countries, Tetley said.
Tea farmers and estate workers will use phones and cameras provided by Tetley to share what they are doing. They will upload text messages, photographs and video clips to the Facebook page, allowing consumers to experience the estate’s journey towards certification as it happens, and get a sense of day-to-day life on a tea estate. Consumers will be able to communicate directly with the tea workers and each other via the Facebook page and add their comments.
"From the outset of the Rainforest Alliance and Tetley collaboration, both parties challenged themselves to come up with a new and exciting campaign that would increase people’s understanding of how our work has a positive and enduring impact on tea farmers," Tensie Whelan, president of the Rainforest Alliance, said.
Tetley has committed to sourcing all of the tea for its Tetley brand from Rainforest Alliance Certified farms.
Currently, 75 million cups of Tetley tea are consumed globally each day. The company’s commitment to buying from Rainforest Alliance Certified tea farms will benefit both the environment and the lives of the tea farmers and workers on a large scale, the Rainforest Alliance said in a release.
All Tetley branded tea bags and loose tea for black, green and red (Rooibos) tea, including flavored and decaffeinated varieties, will be part of the certification program, which is scheduled for completion by 2016. Tata Global Beverages is the owner of the Tetley brand.
All farms that are Rainforest Alliance Certified have met the environmental, social and economic standards of the Sustainable Agriculture Network (SAN). The SAN standards cover ecosystem conservation, worker rights and safety, wildlife protection, water and soil conservation, agrochemical reduction, decent housing, and legal wages and contracts for workers.
The Rainforest Alliance began working with tea farmers in 2006 and is now active in Kenya, Tanzania, Argentina, India and Indonesia. Today 215,000 acres (87,000 hectares) are Rainforest Alliance Certified, producing 125,000 tons of tea and benefiting 170,000 tea workers and their families. Recently 38,000 tea smallholders in Kenya achieved Rainforest Alliance certification.
The Rainforest Alliance works closely with the Ethical Tea Partnership (ETP), of which Tetley is a member. The collaboration between the Rainforest Alliance and the ETP aims to build capacity within the tea industry to tackle sustainability issues from the grassroots upwards and through to certification.
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