Respecting the planet
"Our Trees For Life campaign actually resulted in the planting of three million trees across the world. But we didn't stop there..."
Long term thinking
Working with the Rainforest Alliance helps us to improve working conditions and living standards in tea growing countries all over the world. We also aim to respect the environment too, by minimizing the effect that tea-growing can have on the planet. Our commitment includes extensive tree planting, significant reductions in the agro-chemicals used, more efficient plant husbandry, better waste management and water treatment.
Fighting deforestation
We’re always trying to find new ways to reduce our carbon footprint still further, but is reducing negative impact enough? There are other positive ways we can combat climate change. Twenty years ago, our former chairman promised his children he’d plant a million trees after they saw a TV programme about deforestation. In the end, our Trees For Life campaign actually resulted in the planting of three million trees across the world. But we didn’t stop there. We realized that to make a real difference we had to stop the destruction of the rainforest. With our Yorkshire Rainforest Project, customers have been saving on-pack tokens to support our mission to save a Yorkshire-sized area of rainforest - and you can help too!
Keeping tea flowing
Importing tea and coffee is a big part of what we do. So how do we get it to Harrogate? Tea is still shipped from India, Africa and Sri Lanka. Until a few years ago, our tea arrived at southern ports such as Felixstowe and Tilbury. However, being 250 miles away was not only inconvenient, it wasn’t very eco-friendly. So now all our tea, rather aptly, arrives and is warehoused at Teesport, Middlesborough. Being only an hour away from Harrogate, it means we not only save around 100,000 road miles a year, we can streamline the flow of tea into our factory and reduce the stocks held on site. And who keeps tea supplies flowing from Teesport? Our Commodities Shipping Manager... called Richard ‘Brewster’. You couldn’t make it up.
Keeping it local too
"We've been a member of the local community since 1886 and we try to be good neighbours by doing our bit to support local charities, schools and events whenever we can."
Importing, blending and producing Yorkshire Tea is an exciting international operation, but we never forget our roots. We’ve been a member of the local community since 1886 and we try to be good neighbours by doing our bit to support local charities, schools and events whenever we can. You may have heard of Captain Rummage, our recycling pirate. He has a swash-buckling approach to waste and turns trash into treasure. It all started with his Cone Exchange programme that re-used the cardboard cones our tagged teabag string came on to make Christmas angels. Since then, Captain Rummage has been promoting the three ‘arrrrs!’ in schools: ‘reduce, reuse and recycle’. He’s raised loads for charity, received an MBE and won an environmental award for us too!
Reducing our impact
Reductions in our landfill waste is just one of the ways we’re reducing our impact on the environment. We’ve also installed solar panels and a rainwater collection system on our roofs for providing power and ‘grey water’ for flushing toilets. Our vehicles are cleaned with a van-washing system that uses recycled water. Coffee packaging has been reduced in weight by a third saving around twenty tons of packaging a year. Heat recovery systems on our coolers actually pre-heat our hot water and ‘variable speed drives’ on factory equipment provide CO2 reductions of around 38%. Our new warehouse is designed to make the most of natural light and motion sensors switch lights off when they’re not needed. It all makes sense and it saves us money too.
Have you tried our full range of teas? From a delicious decaf to our award-winning Gold, we have the tea for you.
Tea done properly is a thing worth shouting about – and that's exactly what we're doing in our new TV advert.
Check out our Yorkshire Tea collectables - high quality branded products which make great gifts for tea lovers!
