PATRICKWELSHFOR^ FORBESNOVEMBER 30, 20 19CONTRARIANENTREPRENEURSpretty signifi cant conversation to get to that place.”
Bigelow now produces two billion tea bags from
its three plants every year, feeding a product line
that comprises 150 fl avors. It shuns the more in-
dustrial “cut-tear-curl” drying practices as well as
buying cheap tea like a popular kind used by many
competitors, which is offi cially classifi ed as “dust.”
While most competitors long ago stopped sourc-
ing from Sri Lanka because of the high costs there,
Bigelow still buys from dealers it has worked with
for years, purchasing tea leaves only from moun-
taintop farms, where the fl avor is crisper.
Says Richard Enticott, a veteran botanicals bro-
ker who works with Bigelow and its competitors:
“They’re not hard negotiators because they recog-
nize their partners need to be successful. In a lot of
negotiations we do, price is everything.”
Bigelow is now registered as a benefi t corpora-
tion in Connecticut, which requires businesses to
have a positive impact on workers and the envi-
ronment. It also received national certifi cation this
year as a B Corp thanks to longtime practices like
giving bonuses to all plant workers based on annu-
al sales and converting its three plants to renewable
energy.
It has also defi ed an industry consolidation trend,
led by Unilever, which has rolled up brands like
Lipton, Pure Leaf, Pukka and, most recently, Tazo,
which it acquired from Starbucks for $384 million
in 2017. Bigelow, the only independent top-selling
tea company left, would likely fetch far more, and
PE fi rms and public companies call at least once a
week, Cindi says. So far they’ve all been rebuff ed.
David and his wife, Eunice, both well into their
90s, still mix each batch of Constant Comment
monthly, working behind the only door in the plant
that doesn’t have a window, taping over the security
cameras before they start mixing. They shared the
recipe with their daughter only fi ve years ago. Cindi
may have to decide someday when to share it with
her two children, both in their 20s, who will inher-
it the business when she’s gone.
“One of the reasons we never sold this compa-
ny,” says David, “was because the fi rst day we sold it,
they’d open up a Constant Comment tea bag, count
the number of orange peel pieces and go, ‘There
were 15 pieces of orange peel in it. That’s ridiculous.
They don’t need more than 10.’ ”er in 1959 and ran it for 45 years, transforming it
from a niche, mail-order gift shop brand into a
grocery store staple. Cindi, the younger of his two
daughters, joined in 1986 armed with an M.B.A.
from Northwestern and spent two decades work-
ing her way through the business, starting in the
accounting department.
This is not to say the Bigelows didn’t spill a lit-
tle tea along the way. They both had to contend
with a generational transfer—a particular chal-
lenge for David—and keeping up in a $12 billion
global industry that favors mass commercializa-
tion, consolidation and low costs. Nonetheless,
Fairfi eld, Connecticut-based Bigelow Tea, which,
like all our Forbes Small Giants, values greatness
over growth, has doubled in revenue since Cindi
took over in 2005, now with $200 million in an-
nual revenue.
“He felt, I’m sure for years, that he was the best
one to probably run the company,” says Cindi.
“Sometimes that generation will be very control-
ling; it has to be their way. That’s a kiss of death.”
As Cindi’s experience at the company grew, so
did the pushback. She proposed a line of holiday-
themed teas, but David didn’t have any interest in
fl avors like pumpkin spice or eggnog. Then came
a push into natural grocery stores, but he disliked
the idea of piling on more costs to get shelf space
and consumer awareness. The tense arrangement
lasted for years and wasn’t sorted out until Cindi
called a family meeting to unload on her 79-year-
old father.
“I explained to him what his actions were doing
to me personally. And once he heard that, every-
thing melted away,” she said. “It became about do-
ing the right thing for the family, but it did take a44
HOW TO PLAY IT
by William
Baldwin
Bigelow Tea
has designated
itself a “benefi t
corporation,” one
that purports to
have the interests
of society and
the environment
in mind as much
as those of profi t-
grasping share-
holders. Smart
move, given that
socialists are on
the warpath. You
can’t buy shares
of Bigelow, but
you can tilt
to companies
that apply a
protective layer
of “stakeholder”
talk over their
aff airs. In the
Forbes ranking of
socially conscious
exchange-traded
funds, the leader
in cost effi ciency
is Xtrackers MSCI
USA ESG Leaders
Equity; holdings
include Microsoft ,
Alphabet and
Walt Disney.
Vanguard’s
environment-so-
cial-governance
fund is almost as
cheap.
William Baldwin is
Forbes’ Invest-
ment Strategies
columnist.FORBES.COMFINAL THOUGHT
“IN A FAMILY BUSINESS STRUCTURE,
SOMETIMES WHAT IS NEEDED IS
A SENSE OF DISCIPLINE RATHER
THAN CREATIVITY.”
—Ashwin SanghiFBigelow Cont.Little Big Picture
RELATIVE FAILURE
There are nearly 5.5 million family-owned businesses
in the U.S., but not many of them are especially long
in the tooth. Some 88% of family-business owners say
they’d like to pass the fi rm on to Junior or Granddaugh-
ter, but companies that try to keep it in the bloodlines
over the decades mostly just end up bloodied:30%
12%
3%
of family-owned
businesses survive
into the second
generationget to the third
generationmake it to the
fourth generationSource: The Family Business Alliance.