| Type | Subsidiary |
|---|---|
| Industry | Beverage |
| Founded | 1998 |
| Founder(s) |
Clayton Christopher David Smith |
| Headquarters | Austin, Texas |
| Products | See products section |
| Employees | 43 |
| Parent | Nestlé Waters North America |
| Website | http://www.sweetleaftea.com |
Sweet Leaf Tea Company is a producer of ready-to-drink organic teas and lemonades made with 100% pure cane sugar headquartered in the Penn Field Business Park in the South Congress area of Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1998 by Clayton Christopher and David Smith. Sweet Leaf Tea is available in 16 oz recyclable aluminum cans, 16oz glass, 12oz PET and 20oz PET at specialty grocers across the United States.
On April 2, 2008 Sweet Leaf Tea Company announced $18 million in private funding from Catterton Partners.[1] On May 29, 2008 Sweet Leaf Tea Company filed suit against an Arizona-based company for the name of their sweetener, SweetLeaf Stevia.[2] On March 23, 2009 Nestlé Waters North America made a $15.6 million investment in Sweet Leaf Tea.[3] It acquired the rest of the company in 2011.
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Sweet Leaf Tea was created after founder Clayton Christopher returned from a road trip throughout Alabama and Mississippi where he saw the abundance of homemade iced tea that all the local "mom and pop" restaurants served. They did not find bottled tea on the market that tasted like homemade iced tea. Using his grandmother's iced tea recipe, Clayton and his best friend and business partner, David Smith started brewing tea in pillow cases and crawfish pots in Clayton's kitchen; then using garden hoses to transport the tea to plastic bottles.[4]
After already having a 35% stake with Sweet Leaf, Nestle Waters North America fully acquired Sweet Leaf on May 5, 2011.
Teas
Lemonades
Sweet Leaf Tea is available for purchase in convenience stores, restaurants, supermarkets and specialty grocers like Market of Choice, Whole Foods Market, Albertsons, Piggly Wiggly, Costco, Target, Kroger, The Fresh Market, Wal-Mart and Straub's Markets throughout the United States and online at the bottlers website.
Sweet Leaf is headquartered in the Penn Field Business Park in the South Congress area of Austin, Texas.[5][6]
Sweet Leaf originally had its headquarters in Beaumont, Texas.[7] The headquarters moved to Austin in October 2003.[8] In the mid-2000s Sweet Leaf had its headquarters in an area west of Downtown Austin.[9] In 2007 Sweet Leaf relocated to the South Congress area.[10] In April 2009 the company began to look for a larger headquarters space.[6] In October 2009 Sweet Leaf announced that it planned to move its headquarters to a LEED certified building during that month.[11] In December 2009 the company moved its headquarters to the Penn Field Business Park in South Congress in December of that year. After the move the company had almost three times the amount of headquarters space that it previously had.[6]
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