‘Turbocharged’: T2 chief spills the tea on US, Europe growth plans

T2 Tea plans to increase its footprint in the US, UK and European markets under its new private equity owner while “turbocharging” its gifting and personalisation range to boost sales in Australia.

The Melbourne-born tea brand was sold by former parent company Unilever to private equity firm CVC Capital in November 2021, as part of a stable of 34 tea brands called Ekaterra that includes Lipton, Pukka, and PG Tips.

“It’s one family all working together to bring that T2 journey to the likes of the US and Europe which we’ve never really done before in scale,” T2 Tea global managing director Derek Muirhead told The Herald and The Age.

On top of operating 60 stores in Australia, T2 also has 5 physical stores in the UK and New Zealand, 4 in the US, and 3 in Singapore.

“If I look at the US one of those opportunities that I’m talking about is to bring T2 to new customers in that market, working with those teams, and of course Europe, which we don’t trade with at all, which is also quite exciting.”

Under Unilever, Ekaterra didn’t receive much attention as only the 11th-largest division of the consumer goods giant, but CVC Capital is “an important part of our future”, Muirhead said.

More locally, T2 aims to engage its core Australian market by dialling up its gifting ranges that were a “huge growth factor” during the pandemic and expanding its retail footprint, particularly in “localised community-based” areas.

T2 will launch luxury advent calendars as part of its upcoming Christmas range this year, which Muirhead acknowledged was “expensive” but “really a point of difference”.

“That strategy has been turbocharged for 2023 with a range of core gifting the likes we’ve certainly never seen before.”