Specialty Food Magazine is the leading publication for retailers, manufacturers and foodservice professionals in the specialty food trade. It provides news, trends and business-building insights that help readers keep their businesses competitive.
Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/725016
EUNICE AND DAVID BIGELOW Bigelow Tea Company In 1945, David Bigelow's mother Ruth played around with an Early Colonial recipe for tea in her New York City kitchen, naming her concoc- tion "Constant Comment" after ladies at a tea party couldn't stop talking about it. David worked in the industrial film business in the 1950s, where he met his wife, Eunice, before joining his family's burgeoning tea company in 1959. Together, the couple brought the business to a whole new level. Inspiration… Eunice and David Bigelow took over the Bigelow Tea Company in 1963 and ran it until 2005, when they handed the reins to their daughter, Cindi Bigelow. They remain very much involved as co-chairs, feel inspired every day, and declined to discuss age. "We keep everybody guessing," Eunice says. "We have nothing to retire from, that's our problem." "We love tea, we love the business," David agrees. "It's a very interesting enterprise, like a great, giant puzzle you have to work at every day, always looking for the next answer, or opportunity, or problem to solve." "Our input is all about quality, quality, quality," adds Eunice. "Tasting teas is a very critical part of what we do, and across the country they're buying our taste." When it comes to Assam tea leaves from India, for instance, they look for mellowness and a certain astringency, she says. The Fairfield, Conn.-based company produces around 120 varieties of tea today; Constant Comment black tea is still their bestseller. Nine of Bigelow's teas, in f lavors such as peach, Earl Grey, and raspberry, are produced at the Charleston Tea Plantation on Wadmalow Island near Charleston. Eunice and David purchased it at auction in 2003. "We bid and bid and bid to get it," Eunice says, "so that farm would not be lost to a contractor who wanted to put in condomini- ums." The 127-acre site is America's largest working tea garden and a popular tourist attraction, receiving more than 65,000 yearly visitors. Impact… Until the late 1960s, Bigelow tea was mainly sold in gift shops and gourmet sections at department stores. "Because of demand, people started asking for it at grocery stores," David says. "We were the first ones on the shelves there and sort of broke the sound barrier." The Bigelows keep ahead of the pack by generating new f lavors, introducing six to eight each year. Overall, they sell more than 1.7 billion tea bags annually. "My mother very much wanted to start a tea company when she made that first blend in her kitchen," David says. "But nobody could have envisioned what it became." The Future… Bigelow recently introduced an organic line called Steep, which includes a selection of green, herbal, and flavored teas. "The health-food industry is growing like a weed and pretty much demanding organic," David says. Solar panels were installed years ago at the Fairfield facility. "Our daughter Cindi is into the greening movement and the goal is to produce virtually zero landfill," says David. Except for their foil-wrapped tea bags, which seal in freshness, he says, everything is compostable. At Bigelow's plants in Boise, Idaho, and Louisville, Kentucky, workers now get their names printed on the label. "Our operators are happy and proud," David says, "and it makes consumers a little more conscious about the quality of it, where our tea comes from." "My mother very much wanted to start a tea company when she made that first blend in her kitchen," Bigelow says. "But nobody could have envisioned what it became." PHOTOS: BIGELOW TEA COMPANY 36 ❘ SPECIALTY FOOD MAGAZINE specialtyfood.com