Yorkshire Tea launches Campaign for a Proper Brew

Taylors of Harrogate has launched a ‘Campaign for a Proper Brew’ with its Yorkshire Tea brand.

The campaign highlights consumer dissatisfaction with tea out of home, often due to cafés and restaurants using one-cup teabags, which contain less tea than standard-sized teabags and consequently make weaker tea. The campaign also reveals the proper profits that can be made by getting tea right.

A Yorkshire Tea survey, conducted in partnership with YouGov, surveyed over 2,000 people across the UK. Key findings from the report included:

• 44% of respondents named tea as their preferred hot drink at home, with just 31% opting for coffee. In contrast, when out of home, only 15% opt for tea the most, with 49% choosing to drink coffee instead.

• 40% of tea drinkers said that the last cup of tea they drank out of home was worse than the tea they generally drink at home, with 13% saying that it was much worse.

• 28% of those who have drunk tea out of home were not satisfied with the last cup of tea they were served in this setting.

• Of those that rated their last cup of tea at an out-of-home establishment as worse than the tea they drink at home:

* 53% said it didn’t taste as good

* 49% said it was weaker than they would like it to be

* 22% said they did not have access to their preferred tea brand.

In response to the research findings, Yorkshire Tea is encouraging out-of-home businesses to join its campaign and is helping them to serve a proper brew. Yorkshire Tea is currently the only major standard black tea brand to offer the same strength across all its products, regardless of where a consumer drinks their brew, following a move last year to increase the teabag weight of its One Cup lines to match its retail offering.

Natalie Cross, out of home manager at Taylors of Harrogate, said: “Our research clearly shows that consumers are disappointed by the tea they drink in cafés and restaurants around the UK and that the industry needs to act to make sure that they are delivering what their customers want. Black tea with milk is still the preferred tea option out of home with 61% regularly consuming this brew (Allegra) and so caterers need to get their standard tea right. 41% of tea drinkers in our poll drink Yorkshire Tea at home, giving them a high expectation for a proper brew. We’re encouraging and supporting out-of-home establishments to serve a proper brew, and in doing so, helping them to generate more trade and loyalty from consumers.”

Yorkshire Tea’s research also highlights how serving poor tea can affect a café or restaurant’s reputation. 42% of Brits who have ever drunk tea out of home said their opinion of the establishment had been affected by the quality of the tea they were served and 48% of all tea drinkers would be more likely to visit an out-of-home outlet if it served good quality tea. Customers are also likely to pay more for a good quality cup of tea – while the average price of a cup of tea is £1.92 (Allegra), almost a fifth of tea drinkers (19%) said they would be willing to pay up to 20p more than this for a proper brew.

For customers who wish to support the campaign and highlight the fact they serve a proper brew, PoS resources are available to order free of charge through the website taylorsoutofhome.co.uk. These include Yorkshire Tea bunting, mini campaign banners, strut cards, window and till stickers and wipe-clean ‘How to make a proper brew’ posters. taylorsoutofhome.co.uk

Tel: Taylors of Harrogate (0800) 515988