Matte Leão

Matte Leão (English: Lion Matte, in this case Maté is purposely written wrong, the correct Portuguese spelling for the herb is "Mate") is a Brazilian tea brand, owned by The Coca Cola Company.^[1] Matte Leão offers a range of over 100 types of teas, which are ready for use.

History

The Guarani natives were first to use leaves and stems of the plant Ilex paraguariensis, or yerba maté, a native of southern Brazil. After the 17th century, the grass began to be marketed on an industrial scale. On May 8, 1901, in Paraná, along with natural herbal, Agostinho Ermelino de Leão Júnior founded St. Augustine Factory, starting a new chapter in the history of processing mate. At first, Leo Junior exported in the form of mate to Argentina, Uruguay and Chile. When Leo Junior died in 1908, his wife, Maria Clara took over the business. A fire destroyed the factory in 1912 and the company moved to Curitiba. After a recovery period, the company's exports reached 5000 tons per year in the early 20s.

The paths to market leadership began to be opened in 1926, when the Leão concluded the construction of facilities with a railway extension to dispose of own production to the port of Paranaguá, which exported to Montevideo and Buenos Aires. Another fire in 1930 burned the new plant, which had its own generation of electricity, rail terminal and a unique village houses for workers. Innovative also in image processing, in the 30s to Leo Junior & Co. prepares the first film to promote their products, moving into the market. During these first three decades, the company diversified its activities also operating in the sectors of timber, coffee, wheat milling, livestock, mining, waterways, safe, and air transportation with the creation of Aerolloyd Iguassu.

At the end of this decade, in 1938, the company realized the habit of people to add an iced tea to drink, to consume it toasted, launched in the Brazilian tea Matte Leão toast. Its introduction was as innovative as the product: at night, a lighted boat ran the beaches of Rio de Janeiro Botafogo in announcing the product with the slogan "Já vem queimado use e abuse."("Already burned, use and abuse.") From this time the company realizes his true vocation, focusing the business only to mate. In 1950, in the scorching heat of the beaches of Rio de Janeiro, the most popular drink was home-made iced tea, sold by street vendors in drums on the beach. Noting this trend, the brand has launched the Matte Leão iced tea, the first mate ready to drink in vessels sealed.

Since 1969, the company ends its routine product release powder with Matte Leão concentrated in the bottle, followed in 1973 by creating the matte bag, initially in the flavors and natural lemon and toasted mate tea to be ready instantly soluble by adding hot water or ice. In 1983, again anticipating the trends in consumption of natural herbal teas launched, starting with the flavors of chamomile (one of the most popular herbs originating in the flora of Europe and West Asia), lemon grass, grass candy (produced by the selection of the fruits of the plant, guaranteeing the aniseed-flavored and taste particularly sweet tea), Boldo and mint. But in the summer of 1987 with the launch of ready to drink tea in cups of 300 ml, focused initially on sales on the beaches of Rio, the brand saw its sales soar.

The production of different packaging for the iced tea - 330ml, 500ml, 1.5 liters, and the 300ml cups - takes place in 2002 with the factory opened in Rio de Janeiro. In 2004, Leão invests in functional teas and introduces new line of teas mixed combinations of flavors and properties of many herbs tailored to situations and consumers with specific needs such as Boa Noite (Good Night) version (aroma and mild flavor and is ideal for company opportunities for relaxation), Silvestre (result of the combination of aromas of strawberry, raspberry and black currant), Orchard (mixture of soft aromas of peach, apple, cherry and orange) and Tropical (delicate combination of flavors striking passion fruit, mango, pineapple, apple and banana). The expansion of the line brought innovations such as the many choices of flavors: lemon with mate flavor, peach, guaraná and iced tea with peach and limon flavors.

In 2006, the company makes to innovate and launch the Green Tea, green tea ready to drink without calories in Brazil. In the dry line were created with flavored green teas, black tea with cinnamon and winter line of flavors with tea Mate Leão chocolate with caramel flavor. Both success drew the attention of The Coca-Cola Company, which bought the company in early 2007. In the same year introduced the Green Tea Spree, first green tea with lemon low calorie ready to drink lightly carbonated Brazil. The latest new brand, introduced in 2009, was the Lion Concentrate Matte with home-made taste and striking the Matte and are extremely profitable for those who have the habit of drinking mate at all times.

External links

References

^ http://www.elancers.net/, "A Leão, empresa integrante do grupo Coca-Cola Brasil"

[1] ttp://www.elancers.net/, "A Leão, empresa integrante do grupo Coca-Cola Brasil"

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