What Sets Us Apart | Colorado Companies to Watch | Teatulia Organic Teas

Teatulia made Colorado Business Magazine's top companies to watch for 2014! Learn more about Teatulia: http://www.teatulia.com/about-us.htm Linda Appel Lipsius, co-founder and CEO of Teatulia Organic Teas, talks about why her company is a Colorado Company to Watch. http://www.teatulia.com/ PORTRAIT: With a full-time team of six, Teatulia Organic Teas manufactures organic hot and iced teas. All of the company’s “next generation” retail packaging is sustainable and recyclable, while successfully protecting delicate tea leaves. DIFFERENTIATOR: Teatulia is the first and only U.S. tea brand to own its own tea garden. With more than 3,000 acres in Bangladesh, the garden prohibits the use of machinery, unnatural irrigation, chemicals or pesticides, based on celebrated Japanese farmer Masanobu Fukuoka’s natural farming methods. The once barren land is now booming with growth and is home to several species. Additionally, Teatulia’s revolutionary packaging, currently under patent review, sets the company apart from its competitors with its clear pledge to sustainability. MAJOR MOMENT: Last summer, mega-retailer Target approached Teatulia to supply its stores with organic tea, ultimately distributing to 1,500 locations nationwide. The brand is the first and only 100 percent organic tea in Target, and other superstores have since taken notice of the consumer trend toward sustainable and responsible business practices. COMMUNITY: The original intent of Teatulia’s 3,000-acre tea garden was to create jobs in an extremely impoverished community. Today the garden employs more than 1,000 people annually. The company has educated its farmers on organic practices used daily to produce more than 120 tons of organic vegetables each year and sold to local retailers in Bangladesh. The cattle-lending program allows workers to receive cattle on loan from the garden, and repayment comes in the form of cattle dung, used as bio-fertilizer.