In Germany black tea lovers know the tea campaign (German: Teekampagne) as the source of excellent Darjeeling tea. In its 25 years of existence it developed into the world's largest single importer of Darjeeling tea from India – importing more than 400 tons per year. What makes tea campaign special and so successful? The company sells only one type of tea: The finest Darjeeling tea from selected tea gardens in the Darjeeling area in India. It only sells packages of 1 kg and the tea can only be purchased through a website or mail order. There are no stores. The quality of tea campaign’s tea is radically better than the teas in most small tea shops in Germany and it sells for a much cheaper price than all tea shops.
The quality is so much better because tea campaign has exclusive contracts and buys the whole yearly output of selected tea gardens in India that have to adhere to strict quality standards. 25% of the annual revenue of tea campaign is invested in local projects at partner tea gardens of tea campaign to provide schooling for the families working at the tea gardens and to provide fair wages and prices.
The founder of tea campaign, the German university professor for entrepreneurship Günter Faltin, discovered 25 years ago that 90% of the tea price the end user pays in Germany is caused by various layers of intermediate wholesale traders that want their share of the import business. That resulted in a great variety of teas in small packages with way too high prices, according to Faltin’s view. If one could eliminate the wholesale traders from the equation there would be a lot of room to pay decent prices to the tea gardens and the people working there and to offer outstanding tea at a much cheaper price. Where before there was the wholesale market, the tea surveyor, the broker, the auctioneer, the intermediary, the importer, the exporter, the packager and the tea store owner, now there is only the tea producer, tea campaign and the end user. Using an innovative business model, tea campaign radically simplified the supply chain and the way tea is bought and sold.
