Aug
25
Passionate about tea
2009 | Filed under Company Spotlight | (0) 
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Greg Earl admits to loving ‘a decent cup of tea’. Tea is his passion as well as his career. Today, he’s Operations Manager at Punjana in Belfast, Northern Ireland’s biggest selling tea brand and also the fastest growing brand in Scotland. It’s a post to which he brings years of experience gained with a multinational business that included tea in its hefty portfolio of products.
“I joined Punjana because it is a family-owned tea company that has been blending quality teas since 1896 and has a longstanding tradition of excellence in the sourcing, blending and processing of its products. It remains totally focused on providing consumers with the best possible taste and flavour. This means everyone who buys a distinctively branded Punjana pack can count on the provenance of everything the company produces,” explained Greg. “I was also attracted by the strong family values of quality, care and service that underpin this progressive business.
A PEOPLE BUSINESS
“Punjana is essentially a people business that cares about its employees, customers and suppliers especially those in the tea gardens of Assam and Kenya, which supply all our leaves. We know where the tea leaves come from and we can depend on the growers to supply consistently high quality tea leaves.” Now the market leader in Northern Ireland by volume and value, one of Punjana’s most successful new products is a Fair Trade pack.
“After many years on the payroll of a multinational, it is great to be working with such a widely recognised and respected tea brand that has become a household name in Northern Ireland. In my previous roles I well remember the impact the ‘Pick Punjana Tea’ slogan had on us. It was a simple but powerful television jingle that became instantly recognisable throughout the province.”
MAINTAINING QUALITY AND VALUE
Greg’s role at Punjana’s state-of-the-art tea packing facility in Belfast is to ensure the continuing competitiveness of the company’s teas by increasing productivity, reducing costs, whilst still maintaining the quality and value of its products.
“Our objective is to be the best that we can be in everything we do,” he said. “We have to be better than our competitors. This means continuous downward pressure on costs, especially waste, and focusing on improving all aspects of our business, particularly our interface with customers. I’ve been able to apply some of the experience I’ve gained of production techniques to help Punjana’s overall competitiveness, ensuring that there is no room whatsoever for complacency.
“This is because we are operating in what is an intensely competitive and fast moving marketplace. We are the only mainstream tea company that is based in Northern Ireland. All our competitors in the sector are large mainland-based multinationals which focus less on attention to detail and are less passionate about the end product.”
INVESTMENT IN TECHNOLOGY
Punjana, he pointed out, has also prospered by investing in innovation in production technology, products, packaging and marketing. The tea bag processing and packaging system was designed specifically to requirements laid down by joint managing directors Ross and David Thompson, the third generation of the family that started the business back in 1896.
“The technology is unique, a world first, a remarkable achievement for Northern Ireland. We have the world’s fastest tea bag manufacturing machines. Indeed these specialist machines are bespoke to Punjana and each one produces an amazing 2,500 tea bags every minute - three million in total every day,” said Greg. Indeed, today, the equivalent of 80,000 cups of Punjana tea, are drunk every hour of the day and night, 365 days a year.
“After researching a prototype of Punjana’s new soft foil re-sealable pack, the reaction from consumers in Northern Ireland was so positive that the company was encouraged to embark on a £2.5 million investment project, which resulted in the launch of these new packs onto all supermarket shelves in the province last year.”
PROUD TO BE LOCAL
Ross Thompson, who takes great pride in selecting and blending the teas with cousin David, is very reassured with the daily letters and messages received on the company’s website from first time users, who are delighted with the extra taste and flavour that Punjana delivers. Punjana is certainly a Northern Ireland company and proud to be an independent, local business.
As well as being Northern Ireland’s clear market leader by volume and value, Punjana now sells around 40 per cent of its output outside the region, mostly to the main supermarket chains in Great Britain and the Republic of Ireland.
Punjana is now to be found on the shelves of every supermarket, symbol group and independent grocery business in Northern Ireland and, more recently, has obtained listings in many of the major supermarket multiples in the UK, including Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Asda and Morrisons.
EXPLOITING OPPORTUNITIES
In addition, the company is now building a strong brand presence in Boston and the New England area for its attractively packaged ‘Irish Breakfast Tea’. While continuing to invest significant resources in maintaining its market leadership in Northern Ireland, other opportunities in Great Britain and the US are now being actively exploited successfully by the Punjana team.
“We are tremendously proud of our great heritage. Our teas were blended in the shadow of the great cranes at Harland and Wolff shipyard and enjoyed, for example, by workers on the Titanic, Olympic and Britannic vessels. We’ve found customers to be fascinated by the company’s story and impressed by the provenance of all our teas.
THE PERFECT CUPPA
“We’ve always sought to set Punjana apart in all our markets by focusing on taste. We achieve this by ensuring that our leaves are sourced only from the finest gardens in Assam and Kenya and only from farmers who share our ideals regarding fair trade, health care and education for all who work on their estates,” added Greg.
“Punjana strives to make the perfect every day cup of tea. This can be achieved only by buying superior tea leaves. Tea tasters worldwide invariably agree which tea gardens produce the best tea leaves and therefore sourcing the tea leaves is not the biggest challenge - it is simply that a company must be prepared to pay more money to secure the superior tea leaves.
“We put the best in to get the best out - it’s a simple but effective truth. Whether it’s the best selling Punjana ‘Original Pack’, or one of the company’s new speciality teas, the Thompsons take great pride in every pack that leaves their Belfast factory,” he concluded.
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