Tim, could you briefly share your background and what led you into tea, and Lipton specifically?
I’ve been with the company since August. I’ve spent most of my career in consumer goods, and most of that within food and beverage. I started on the Pringles business many years ago, and then had the opportunity to work at Starbucks on their tea business, where Tazo, which is now one of our portfolio brands, was in the Starbucks portfolio.
That’s where I absolutely fell in love with the tea category. I saw the potential for tea to really improve lives and drive health outcomes, particularly in America, where we’re not a tea nation. If you look to Canada, tea consumption is about two and a half times per capita what it is here in the U.S. Canada is a Commonwealth country and has a colder climate, but there’s still a tremendous opportunity to grow a love and appreciation for tea in the U.S., beyond iced tea, which is a unique, very large and important part of the category here.
How would you describe the significance of tea for health?
We think tea can play a really important role in proactive health, and as part of a proactive health routine.
When you look in the U.S. since 1950, the number one killer has been heart disease, and when you look at the interventions you can make in diet and lifestyle, tea has a role to play with its flavonoid content.
A cup of tea provides about 100 milligrams of flavonoids, with a goal of 400 to 600 milligrams per day. So we think tea plays a very important role in addressing the number one killer in America since 1950.
How do you translate the research into product formulation and consumer education, especially in a market where tea isn’t the default beverage?
For us, it’s really important to be evidence-based and science-led, and not claim or communicate beyond where the science is. The consumer today is receiving more and more messages around health, and in that distribution there’s good as well as bad information. We think it’s our responsibility as a manufacturer not to go beyond the science, and to stay grounded in peer-reviewed literature and published work.
Then we need to do that in a way that’s clear to the consumer: what the potential benefits are, and how tea can help improve health outcomes. Beyond that, when we talk about preventative health and wellness, it can’t be sporadic. It has to be part of a well-orchestrated, consistent routine of diet and exercise, and one key enabler is making sure it tastes really good, because that keeps consumers coming back and makes it easier to adopt into a healthy lifestyle routine.
Are there proven benefits of tea in relation to gut health?
There’s some really interesting emerging research around tea’s role in gut health. There’s extensive work around tea’s role in helping reduce inflammation, and when we think about what’s required for a healthy gut and microbiome, addressing inflammation is one of those key steps.
Beyond that, tea is a hydrating beverage, and it’s important for gut motility to be well hydrated. We’re not making any specific claims today around gut health with our teas, but there’s a growing body of research and evidence to say tea does have a role to play. When we look at big macro trends, we think about heart health, hydration overall, and gut health as an important frontier, and we think tea has a role to play in each.
Do you connect tea and Lipton’s products to the idea of healthy aging?
Yes. A lot of what we talk about in terms of health benefits at Lipton is around flavonoid content. A cup of green tea has 33 times the flavonoid content of a cup of broccoli. That’s powerful as a way to help consumers reach that goal of 400 to 600 milligrams of flavonoids per day.
Just one cup of tea gets you a quarter of the way there. And we know its impact in terms of heart-healthy living, which is a core benefit in terms of healthy aging.
With new dietary guidelines and a more health-conscious consumer, where do you see Lipton fitting in?
The team, and some of this predates me, worked closely with the FDA to help support and advocate for the inclusion of (unsweetened) tea as a healthy beverage in the dietary guidelines. Unsweetened green and black tea is positioned as a healthy beverage because of robust, science-based backing for how it can help improve and manage health outcomes.
We work closely with regulators to support that work. What we’re excited about is that the consumer is more interested and taking ownership of their health journey. We have a more informed consumer population today, and a more receptive population that wants to understand how they can improve health outcomes.
Are you innovating with products that offer additional benefits, beyond the “base” benefits of tea?
The great thing about tea is that at its base it has healthful properties and benefits. If I drink three cups a day of green tea, that’s nearly the flavonoid content of 100 cups of broccoli, just from three cups. Our core proposition has meaningful and important benefits.
One innovation I’m really excited about, launching over the summer, is a new matcha protein latte: matcha powder with protein, including 20 grams of whey protein, to help consumers reach daily protein goals. It’s not necessarily replacing an occasion, it’s augmenting an occasion, like your morning matcha latte, now with the benefit of 20 grams of whey protein, chosen specifically for its bioavailability versus other plant-based sources. We’ll also be launching matcha and chai flavours, and it’s the first time the brand has done anything in the protein category.
Looking ahead, what excites you most over the next 12 months, and what are your priorities for Lipton North America?
What excites me most is the ability to create a platform with tea at its core: anchoring our healthful proposition to consumers and continuing to add benefits on top of that. First, to get consumers more interested in tea, and second, to help influence and improve health outcomes in this region.
What we’re showing with the protein launch is the ability to think beyond a traditional tea bag, beyond the traditional proposition, and lean into science-based, evidence-backed benefit areas, using tea as a platform to deliver that.
