00:00well Chi thank you so much for joining us today we are so excited to hear from you and hear more
00:16about your brand so whenever you are ready by all means go for it yeah thank you I really appreciate
00:24it so what if a simple decision like what you choose to drink could provide delicious refreshment
00:32with superior health benefits and make a meaningful difference in the lives of women
00:37well see Purpose Tea is that choice I'm Chi Nguyen fierce female advocate health and wellness
00:43enthusiast and founder and CEO of Purpose Tea so Purpose Tea was started with one powerful idea
00:49in mind and that is to use business as a platform for positive change in the world
00:54as an immigrant whose family fled communist Vietnam in search of a better tomorrow I understand
01:00intimately the overwhelming need for equal access to opportunity in order to improve your life just
01:06like we had so everyone deserves that access no matter the color of their skin or sex they were
01:12born so at Purpose Tea our vision is to end female poverty in tea and when we empower women not only
01:19do they benefit but so do their families and communities and ultimately societies although
01:25this is what drives me every day I also know it's a significant business opportunity as more and more
01:31consumers demand this level of social responsibility and transparency from the brands they purchase so
01:38with along with our mission of lifting female tea workers from poverty Purpose Tea is poised to
01:42disrupt a fast-moving category with the newest innovation in tea and that is a brewed tea made from
01:49the purple tea leaf so purple tea has superior health benefits as compared to other teas and meets
01:55consumers health challenges it has up to 50 percent more antioxidants and 42 percent less caffeine than
02:01green tea but what really makes it stand out is a polyphenol that no other teas have called GHG
02:07GHG which is a natural occurring ingredient that's been linked to fat burning counteracting diabetes
02:13fighting cancer among a host of other benefits it is a perfect beverage for health conscious and
02:19socially responsible consumers who want to nourish their body mind and soul it truly is the future of
02:25tea so why now you know the total addressable market in the united states is a 55 billion dollar
02:31opportunity with tea dwarfing coffee at a five to one ratio we offer retail customers a first
02:37mover advantage and innovation in a mature category that has seen 27 compounded annual growth in the
02:43last three years and that's being driven by premium and specialty teas in two short years we have 500
02:50plus points of distribution and growing throughout california and texas and we are seeing strong
02:55traction in our whole food stores selling eight units per skew of weekly velocity on a very limited
03:01marketing budget so weekly sales data shows we are driving repeat purchases which is an
03:06important key performance indicator for any brand and in the next two years we have a strong plan to
03:12build out distribution and i've built a team who can execute our head of sales is a beverage veteran
03:17from pepsico with many years of experience in business development and building out distribution networks
03:23i'm also a full-time founder who will use my experience building and marketing brands to build purpose
03:29tea into an influential powerhouse focused on people profits and planet thank you so much
03:35wow thank you chi it was so great to hear more about purpose tea we're going to ask a few questions
03:42now if you don't mind and yeah so first question can you talk to me a little bit more about your shelf
03:52stability of purpose tea how long does it last does it need to be refrigerated what does what does it mean
03:59because it sounds like purple tea is the future just wondering how long does it last
04:07so our beverages are have a shelf stability life of 18 months um so we can sit on the shelf stable aisle
04:14of grocers but we obviously prefer uh to be in the cold section because of just the grab and go
04:21convenience format that it's in which is a bottle um so so it does have an 18 month shelf life
04:27um and hey there where do you source where do you source the tea leaf from so uh you know there was
04:35so much to tell you guys in this like three minute pitch but um that was an important piece but i could
04:40stick it in there so um it is grown in kenya exclusively grown in kenya um i the assam region of india
04:48has also launched a purple tea but it was naturally um it was derived in kenya so they had noticed
04:55something weird happening with their green tea bushes which you know obviously is their largest
05:00economic driver in that country they are the third largest tea growing region in the world and they
05:04got really concerned about it but what they discovered after research was that that naturally
05:08occurring uh change in their tea leaves was a natural defense mechanism of the tea plant and it
05:14was producing anthocyanins to protect itself from the uv rays uh which is a very powerful antioxidant and
05:20so they realized okay they had something special here so they reached research it for 30 years and
05:26then they just commercialized it i'd say in the last nine years um and it has you know it's a hardier
05:32plant than the regular tea bush so it can withstand climate change disturbances and really potentially
05:38provide stability to millions if you think about the trajectory of our climate and where it's going
05:44my question is who do you think your primary competitors are and how are you uh differentiating
05:50yourself from them sure so you know humans only intake a certain amount of beverage you know all
05:58the time and so obviously anything that people consume could be a competitor but in the tea space
06:04we really are the only um uh commercialized purple tea in this format um and i think really truly not
06:13only is it a better uh and more superior tea in terms of its health benefits but i mentioned in
06:20the pitch i mean one thing that i think is just so amazing about it is that is that phytonutrient
06:25called ghg which literally no other tea has so green tea doesn't have it white tea doesn't have it black
06:30tea doesn't have it it is very exclusive to purple tea and that particular ingredient really has a lot of
06:36functional benefits i mean there have been a few studies but fat burning is a huge key which we know is a
06:42a big problem in the united states um you know the other day i read 45 of men are obese in this
06:49country so uh that's a lot of of men um and so that's still an issue and a challenge that consumers
06:56are facing there's a lot of anti-aging properties as well in in that uh polyphenol and it has just
07:02really amazing brain health um uh functionality is too so that is clearly what is going to um
07:09differentiate uh purple tea from all the other teas
07:15great one more question chi you mentioned your team can you tell us a little bit more about the
07:22structure of your team sure so um right now there's only two full-time people myself as the founder and
07:29ceo and i have a head of sales who is the the pepsico veteran we outsource a lot our um other critical
07:38you know uh things that we have to do like marketing and social media media planning and
07:43those types of things so we have partners that help us execute on that marketing plan but right now
07:48because it's you know we're still very early stage and we're raising money there's only two full-time
07:53employees and that's myself and um the head of sales so i really believe obviously in building a team that
08:00complements each other's skills i don't need to bring someone else in here that has the same skills i do
08:05um and my experience was um i was a consultant before i started purpose tea and i consulted in
08:11brand positioning and go-to-market messaging and so i love building brands really positioning brands in
08:17a way that consumers not only functionally feel good about it but also emotionally get attached to it
08:22so i needed to hire someone that was um great in sales really had great experience in retail and has
08:29contacts in retail and so this is what this is what he has and so we've brought him on full-time so
08:37if i go back to where you uh where you can source uh the tea leaf from um given that it's only given that
08:44it's only uh uh you know give given that you can only get it from one place and given uh it clearly has
08:52extraordinary health benefits um are you worried about um bigger players rushing into uh rushing
08:59into the market and uh either driving up the cost uh of the um uh of the leaf or just making it harder
09:06for you to maintain um sort of maintain the shelf space that you have sure so not right now for for
09:14two two reasons when we first started the business we obviously did a swot analysis around that issue that
09:19we thought that was that could be a threat and a good problem to have obviously if you are not
09:25having enough supply um so obviously the the tea plant has a certain life cycle that's something
09:30that you can plan for but right now kenya can actually produce 22 million kilograms a year of
09:35purple tea so that won't be an issue for a very long time and so you talked about just bigger players
09:41coming in and so i believe competition is good for the category i equate it to specialty coffee where
09:48you know there were like three or four players that really lifted up the category and i think
09:52that's a good thing for the category i'm not very concerned about um larger players coming in because
09:58to be quite honest in the past you know uh 10 15 years that's really their r d is smaller brands
10:06and um their level of of innovation is very slow and their brand authenticity is not um
10:15you know it's it's not where i'm taking it with in terms of the the mission driven brand and so
10:20i'm not that concerned about about them uh doing that and we have exclusive engagements with our
10:27suppliers because we work with them so closely because we have a social impact model too that
10:31we want to facilitate on the ground um so we have an exclusive contract with them with pricing you know
10:37um really set in place for for a pretty for a pretty good long time so uh this was a fantastic presentation
10:47um not only uh are you clearly inspired by uh the tea leaf and the business and brand that you're
10:54building around the tea leaf um it's clearly something that um that you know you found a passion
11:00for and there's potentially you know an extraordinary gap in the marketplace um so uh congrats on your success
11:06today and uh appreciate you uh sharing your story with us no i thank you guys so much and i i would
11:12love to add um you know the vision isn't just really purple tea the ingredient there's plenty
11:17of applications to it i mean there could be an extract there could be it just really capitalizing
11:21on that opportunity right now we're doing it in the ready to drink space because it's a pretty dynamic
11:27um category but obviously the vision is to build a health and wellness company around the super the
11:34superhero ingredient great good thank you guys so much yeah thank you i appreciate it
Comments