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T2 (company)

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Tea Too
T2[1]
Company typePrivately held company[1]
IndustryTea products
Founded1996; 28 years ago (1996)[2]
Headquarters
Melbourne, Victoria
,
Australia[1]
Number of locations
40 (2013)[3]
Area served
  • Australia[2]
  • United Kingdom[2]
  • United States[4]
  • Singapore[2]
  • New Zealand[5]
Key people
Derek Muirhead (managing director)[6]
RevenueA$57 million (2012–13 FY)[3]
OwnerLipton Teas and Infusions
Websitewww.t2tea.com

T2, officially registered as Tea Too, is a chain of specialty tea shops with stores in Australia, Singapore, and New Zealand. The company was established in Melbourne, Australia in 1996, and was purchased by Unilever in 2013.[2] In 2013, T2 had 40 stores across the globe and made an annual turnover of A$57 million.[3]

History

T2 was co-founded by Maryanne Shearer and Jan O'Connor. In 1995, they registered a homewares company, 'Contents Homeware'.[7] They changed their focus after identifying a gap in the tea shop market, and chose the name 'Tea two' to denote the two co-founders, but written as 'Tea too'.[8] The business has been credited as paving the way for the tea revival,[9][10] and transforming the tea industry in Australia[11] by educating consumers and championing different flavours and types of tea.[12]

Ownership

Startup

In 1996, Jan O'Connor and Maryanne Shearer each put in $50,000 to start the company as equal co-founders.[13]

In T2: The Book, Maryanne Shearer noted that her business relationship with O'Connor deteriorated when she returned to work in March 2000 after having her first child. As relations continued to be strained, an acrimonious legal battle ensued forcing O'Connor to leave the business. Bruce Crome, Shearer's partner, purchased O'Connor's share in the business at the end of October 2001.[14][15]

Investment partnership

In 2007, Maryanne Shearer and partner Bruce Crome sold 50 per cent of T2 to retail investors Jonathan Dan and Phillip Blanco. After disagreements about growth strategies, Shearer and Crome bought 25 per cent back from Blanco, but Dan continued his investment.[16]

Acquisition by Unilever

Multinational company Unilever acquired T2 from Maryanne Shearer and Bruce Crome in October 2013. As of 2015, Shearer was T2's Creative Director. In announcing the acquisition, Shearer highlighted Unilever's leading role in adopting sustainable agriculture practices for the tea industry as being a good values fit for T2.[17] T2 had worked with Fairtrade since 2009 on the English breakfast tea blend.[18] The Sydney Morning Herald noted that restaurant owner Michael Ryan reacted to the acquisition news with a tweet describing the company as "Unilever's Teas'r'Us".[19] In 2017, writer Jayne D'Arcy used the term "Unilever-ed", to describe the company's shift from being locally Melbourne-owned.[20]

The purchase price was estimated to be less than $100 million,[21] and was later disclosed as $60 million.[22] Legal services for T2 were provided by Baker & McKenzie and Harris Carlson, with financial advice from Deloitte. Legal services for Unilever were provided by Johnson Winter Slattery, with financial advice from KPMG.[23]

Outlets and turnover

Stores

On 1 July 1996, the first store was opened at 340 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy. A second store was opened on Fitzroy Street, St Kilda,[24] but it was closed after 12 months due to low patronage. However, the following year sales increased 20% which fuelled a vision to expand into Sydney.[25]

In November 1999, a store was opened in Chadstone Shopping Centre, Australia's premier shopping centre. The store was immediately a success, helping to increase T2's revenue beyond $1 million.

In 2002, T2 expanded to Sydney with a store in King Street, Newtown. In 2004, there were six stores in the chain, and by 2005 there were eight stores, fifty-five team members and a turnover of $4.4 million. In 2006 the turnover was $8 million. In 2008, they moved their operations from Fitzroy to a leased office in the Port Melbourne area.[26] In August 2012, they leased a warehouse at 50 Cyanamid Street in Laverton North.[27] In September 2012, T2 leased a building at 35 Wellington Street in Collingwood, with the intention of relocating the head office to that location.[28]

In March 2012, Shearer declared that T2 were "being brave" in the difficult retail climate by continuing to expand their number of stores.[29] In September 2012, the first Tasmanian T2 store was opened in the Cat & Fiddle Arcade, Hobart.[30]

In May 2013, a T2 shop was opened at 269 Little Collins Street, Melbourne, after it was vacated by designer Bettina Liano due to rental costs.[31] That same year, T2 opened a store in Cairns Central.[32]

In 2014, 18 new stores were opened. Three of the stores opened in London[33] (including on Shoreditch High Street[34]) and one in New York City. A year later, a fourth London store was opened at 290 Regent Street, in the West End.[35][verification needed]

In 2015, there were over seventy stores in four countries, and around 1,000 team members.[citation needed]

In 2017, the first T2 stores were opened in Scotland[36] (131 Buchanan Street, Glasgow[37]), and in Singapore[38] (the first outlet in Asia[39]). As of November 2017, there were over 96 stores across Australia, New Zealand, the United States and Asia.[40][verification needed]

In 2023, T2 announced that due to "unprecedented changes" of the past few years, they have decided to "close all operations in the Northern Hemisphere to focus on regions closer to home, such as Australia, New Zealand and Singapore".[41] T2's US stores closed on the 19th of February 2023, with their US websites trading until the 22nd of February 2023 (with the exception of their Valley Fair location in California, which remained open until the 25th of June 2023).[42]

Wholesale

Towards the end of 1996, O'Connor developed a custom tea blend for Geoff Lindsay's restaurant Stella. The T2 'Stella' blend was mentioned on the menu, which created a lot of interest from diners. After realising there was a huge opportunity supplying tea to restaurants, an untapped market, O'Connor created a wholesale division for T2.

From mid-2000’s, T2 was supplying 300 cafes and restaurants in multiple states of Australia.[43] By September that year, the number had increased to 400 with a few international accounts.[44] By mid-2001, the number of wholesale accounts had grown to approximately 500.[45] In 2015, there were 3000 wholesale accounts.

Currently, in the T2 Distribution Centre located in Laverton North, Victoria.

Branding

The store design is focused on enjoyment in the rituals of tea-making, and has been described as "a modern version of an old wares store-cum-apothecary".[46] The first store had a pink-painted ceiling and Chinese newspapers as wallpaper.[47] The stores' interior design is dark and moody, with orange and black as signature colours.[48][49] T2's signature orange has been analysed as having vibrancy to appeal to a younger market while retaining simplicity for older tastes, and to imply the colour of brewing tea without being murky or brown.[50] The sensory experience includes tea tastings and "smelling table" product displays of the tea ingredients.[51] The design of the first T2 store in Scotland offered a tea "fountain" constructed from teaware.[52] The ambience of the T2 stores inspired Sunshine Coast author Josephine Moon's debut 2014 novel The Tea Chest.[53]

Tea blends

A small collection of teas from T2

T2's wide range of blends has been considered reflective of Australians' growing interest in boutique teas.[54] The number of blends or varieties have been variously reported as "at least 250" in 2003,[55] "over 200" in 2005,[54] "about 180" in 2006,[56] "250-plus" in 2015,[57] and in 2017, one of their UK stores had over 130 types of tea.[58]

Chai became popular in 2006, and continued to be one of the three top-selling teas for T2 in 2010.[59]

Until 2007, all T2 teas were sold as loose leaf, but at the demand of restaurants, they then introduced tea bags made of sheer muslin cloth in a pyramid shape.[60] The tea bags were produced with a purpose-built imported machine.[61]

In March 2009, in response to the growing popularity of Chinese classic teas, the Perth T2 store launched black tea pu-er in cake form, where previously it had only been selling it as a loose leaf variety.[62]

T2 has a special black tea blend with vanilla for their Melbourne home-city, Melbourne Breakfast Tea, as well as other cities: Brisbane Breakfast with mango,[63] Sydney Breakfast, and Perth Breakfast.[64] In May 2013, T2 created Hobart Breakfast tea.[65]

The Melbourne Breakfast Tea and Liquorice Legs were initially the best-selling blends in the Shoreditch London store in 2014,[66] with later top sellers being London Breakfast and Earl Grey Royale. Flush Darjeeling was so popular as to merit a waiting list.[67]

In 2016 they introduced the Veggie Patch limited edition loose tea range.[68]

A limited edition collection of chai teas was released in 2017, with blends tasting of popcorn, sticky honey, or honeycomb chai.[69]

In line with the first store opening in Singapore, in 2017 T2 created Singapore Breakfast tea, evoking kaya toast with a blend of pu'er, green tea, coconut flakes and roasted rice.[39]

Awards

Co-founder Maryanne Shearer received the Veuve Clicquot Business Woman of the Year award in 2012.[70][71]

The Shoreditch, London store was designed by Australian-based Landini Associates. It won the Store of the Year in the Retail Design Institute's 2014 International Design Competition.[57][72] Landini Associates also redesigned T2's corporate headquarters in Collingwood, which was a Silver Winner in the Interior Design - Corporate Category in the 2014 Melbourne Design Awards.[73]

In 2015, Christopher Stanko's T2 Tea Cotton Teabags designs[74] ranked as a finalist in the Australian Packaging Design Awards (Beverage category).[75]

In December 2016, Metsä Board's packaging design for T2's mini fruit tea range won a Merit Award at the 28th Hong Kong Print Awards (Paper Packaging category). The design also won the Limited Edition category in The Dieline Awards 2017. In the same year, they won an IF Design Award (Beverages Packaging category).[76]

Book Writer

In 2015, Shearer published T2: the book, which discussed the company's history, profiled different types of tea and recommended tea cups and brewing techniques. In February 2016, Kristen Droesch's book review in Library Journal highlighted the unique, artistic details of the design, and considered it to be "...more than just an advertisement for T2.".[77]

The book was designed by Evi O and was a category winner[78] for the Australian Book Designers Association's Best Designed Fully-illustrated Book under $50 in 2016.[79]

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c "Current details for ABN 61 072 399 529". Australian Business Register. 3 October 2019. Retrieved 16 October 2020.
  2. ^ a b c d e "About Us 20 Years". T2. Retrieved 16 October 2020.
  3. ^ a b c "Unilever to acquire T2 premium tea business in Australia". Unilever. 6 September 2013. Retrieved 16 October 2020.
  4. ^ "Find a T2 store near you (US)".
  5. ^ "Find a T2 store near you (NZ)".
  6. ^ "T2 People". T2. Retrieved 16 October 2020.
  7. ^ Shield, Helen (15 June 1998). "These pioneer tea ladies are not potty after all". The Age. Retrieved 1 June 2018.
  8. ^ Shearer, Maryanne (2015). T2: the book. [Melbourne]: Penguin Random House. p. 2. ISBN 9781921383625.
  9. ^ "The Dish: Tea time". New Zealand Herald. 3 November 2006.
  10. ^ Gortan, Renata (16 August 2014). "A true-brew good time". Daily Telegraph. p. 15.
  11. ^ Horswill, Amanda (24 February 2013). "T time". Sunday mail. p. 10.
  12. ^ "Pots of success". Wish Magazine (The Australian). 5 April 2012. p. 20.
  13. ^ Fitzsimmons, Caitlin. "Jan O'Connor and the other T2 story". Australian Financial Review. Retrieved 1 June 2018.
  14. ^ Fitsimmons, Caitlin (24 August 2014). "Co-founder tells other side of T2 story". Australian Financial Review. Retrieved 1 June 2018.
  15. ^ Shearer, Maryanne (2015). T2: the book. Melbourne: Penguin Random House. pp. 6–7. ISBN 9781921383625.
  16. ^ Gardner, Jessica (5 April 2014). "All hard work and hot water". The Australian Financial Review. p. 52.
  17. ^ "T2's telling fortune in tea leaves". The Courier Mail. 9 September 2013.
  18. ^ "United Kingdom: Unilever to acquire T2 premium tea business in Australia". Mena Report. 7 September 2013.
  19. ^ "the feed this week @goodfood.com.au". The Sydney Morning Herald. 1 October 2013. p. 8.
  20. ^ D'Arcy, Jayne (14 May 2017). "Melbourne made, going global". Sunday Age. p. 6.
  21. ^ Mitchell, Sue (5 May 2014). "Global domination in the tea leaves". The Canberra Times. p. 8.
  22. ^ Mitchell, Sue (26 April 2016). "Unilever reads tea leaves on T2 acquisition". The Canberra Times. p. 8.
  23. ^ Broomhall, Elizabeth (16 September 2013). "Bakers brews up for Unilever on high-end Australian tea deal". Legal Week.
  24. ^ Faulkner, Jane (15 May 1998). "Selective sipping down to a tea". The Age. Retrieved 1 June 2018.
  25. ^ Shield, Helen (15 June 1998). "These pioneer tea ladies are not potty after all". The Age Melbourne. Retrieved 8 June 2018.
  26. ^ Lindsay, Nicole (5 August 2008). "Tea change for importer". Herald Sun. p. 59.
  27. ^ "In briefs". The Age. 22 August 2012. p. 9.
  28. ^ "Briefs". The Age. 12 September 2012. p. 12.
  29. ^ "Brave expansion". Inside Retailing. 23 March 2012.
  30. ^ Smith, Linda (13 September 2012). "Tea shop brews up arcade retail storm what's new". The Mercury. p. 1.
  31. ^ Galacho, Olga (1 May 2013). "Chinese developers keen to call Melbourne home". Herald-Sun. p. 66.
  32. ^ Guilfoyle, Caitlin (24 September 2013). "Hot cuppa's catching on". The Cairns Post. p. 8.
  33. ^ Dixon, Annabel (19 April 2014). "Untitled". EG: Estates Gazette. Issue 1366: 3 – via EBSCOhost. {{cite journal}}: |volume= has extra text (help)
  34. ^ Dixon, Annabel (11 April 2014). "Aussie tea specialist debuts in Shoreditch". Estates Gazette Interactive.
  35. ^ "Two foodie flagships tuck into Regent St". Property Week. 27 February 2015. p. 7.
  36. ^ Vyas, Shekha (11 February 2017). "Untitled". EG: Estates Gazette. no. 993: 1 – via EBSCOhost. {{cite journal}}: |volume= has extra text (help)
  37. ^ Vyas, Shekha (9 February 2017). "T2 breaks record for Buchanan Street rent". Estates Gazette Interactive.
  38. ^ "About Us | T2 Tea AU". www.t2tea.com. Retrieved 12 December 2017.
  39. ^ a b Goh, Kenneth (16 January 2017). "Australian tea company T2 cococts brew in homage to kaya toast". The Straits Times.
  40. ^ "T2 on Going Global - Power Retail". Power Retail. 3 November 2017. Retrieved 13 December 2017.
  41. ^ "Tea FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions About T2".
  42. ^ "Tea FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions About T2".
  43. ^ Andrew, Anastasios (July 2000). "Hip to sip". Vogue Entertaining and Travel. Retrieved 1 June 2018.
  44. ^ Trzcinski, Joanne (25 September 2000). "Yesterday's classics still today's chic". U Magazine. Retrieved 1 June 2018.
  45. ^ O'Connor, Jan. "BIRTH OF A BRAND: T2, TEA AND ME". Australasian Tea Association. Retrieved 1 June 2018.
  46. ^ "Store concepts". ICN-International Cosmetic News. 1 October 2007.
  47. ^ Chamberlain, Zoe (28 February 2017). "Trendy Australian tea shop T2 to open in Bullring selling 200 teas". Birmingham Mail.
  48. ^ White, Lyn (7 May 2010). "It's tea time". Inside Retailing.
  49. ^ "T2 tries for 60". Inside Retailing. 18 March 2011.
  50. ^ Barnum, Andrew; Haddock, Suzie; Hicks, Astred; Oppen, Felix (2012). "Colour, elements and illustration". Graphic design: Australian style manual. Sydney: McGraw-Hill Australia. p. 95. ISBN 9780071011051.
  51. ^ Maguire, Mercedes (19 April 2015). "Shops plus". Daily Telegraph. p. 66.
  52. ^ Fotheringham, Ann (10 May 2017). "Time for cuppa as new tea shop opens its doors in city". Evening Times. p. 11.
  53. ^ Collins, Michelle (12 April 2014). "Lightning effect". The Courier-Mail. p. 18.
  54. ^ a b Malkin, Bonnie; Carlton, Alexandra (27 February 2005). "Filter". The Sun-Herald. p. 7.
  55. ^ de Silva, Janet (10 May 2003). "Retail fix Specialty tea shops". The Age. p. 6.
  56. ^ Santer, Vanessa; Rao, Shoba; Torres, Romina (1 November 2006). "Don't LEAF home without it". Sydney MX.
  57. ^ a b Wilson, Marianne (2015). "Tea time". Chain Store Age. 91 (2): 50 – via EBSCOhost Business Source Premier.
  58. ^ "Tea no longer to everyone's taste in Britain as new generation leaves their parents' tradition behind". ABC Premium news. 3 September 2017.
  59. ^ O'Brien, Mary (20 July 2010). "Love at first sip". The Age. p. 4.
  60. ^ Reeves, Elaine (28 February 2007). "Tasty bits". The Mercury. p. 42.
  61. ^ "On the shelf: Loose leaf tea in a bag". Food Magazine: 14. November 2006.
  62. ^ "Long history to the perfect cuppa". The West Australian. 17 December 2009. p. 8.
  63. ^ Bennett, Sue (22 April 2011). "Tea revolution - it's brewing". The Sydney Morning Herald. p. 22.
  64. ^ O'Brien, Mary (21 January 2012). "Australia day tea". The Age. p. 8.
  65. ^ Smith, Linda (15 May 2013). "New brew to suit Tasmanians down to a tea". Hobart Mercury. p. 17.
  66. ^ Mitchell, Sue (5 May 2014). "T2 chief sees global domination in the tea leaves". The Sydney Morning Herald. p. 22.
  67. ^ Sembhy, Ravender (3 August 2014). "T2 tea retailer brews up UK and global expansion". Express.
  68. ^ Morgan, Ben (16 September 2016). "Turmeric craze heats up as tea shop cashes in on King's Road". London Evening Standard Online.
  69. ^ "August report". Manly Daily. 4 August 2017. p. 14.
  70. ^ "Tea retail chief business award". The Advertiser. 8 March 2012.
  71. ^ Dent, Georgia (15 March 2012). "Champagne award for food saver". BRW: 11 – via Factiva.
  72. ^ "T2 takes top honors Retail Design Institute annual competition". Chain Store Age. 28 January 2015.
  73. ^ DRIVENxDESIGN. "T2 Headquarters". DRIVENxDESIGN. Retrieved 12 December 2017.
  74. ^ "T2 Tea Cotton Teabags | AGDA Awards". awards2015.agda.com.au. Retrieved 12 December 2017.
  75. ^ "Finalists for 2015 Packaging Design Awards | Print21 – Print industry news and information for Australia & New Zealand". print21.com.au. Retrieved 12 December 2017.
  76. ^ "Dieline Award, T2 Mini Fruit paperboard packaging design". www.metsaboard.com. Retrieved 12 December 2017.
  77. ^ Droesch, Kirsten (1 February 2016). "Time for tea.("The Tea Book: All Things Tea," "T2: The Book," and "The Art and Craft of Tea: An Enthusiast's Guide to Selecting, Brewing, and Serving Exquisite Tea")(Book review)". Library Journal. 141 (2): 95 – via EBSCOhost.
  78. ^ Edgar, Ray (21 May 2016). "You can judge a cover". The Age. p. 18.
  79. ^ "T2: The Book - Australian Book Designers Association". Australian Book Designers Association. Archived from the original on 6 December 2016. Retrieved 12 December 2017.
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