Tea Company Partners With Prevention Magazine to Make Wellness Drinkable

Organic India partnered with the Rodale Institute and Prevention magazine to create a wellness teas collection that bridges the gap between dietary supplements and good-tasting tea.

Boulder, Colo.-based Organic India supports the Rodale Institute because of its work with regenerative agriculture. The two organizations have partnered for the last few years. Rodale Publishing, which publishes Prevention magazine, formed the Rodale Institute. Research showed that Prevention’s readers were feeling “pill fatigue.” “They wanted to take on healthier living … but they were just tired of taking pills and there was a lot of interest in drinking tea,” said Kyle Garner, the CEO of Organic India. The two companies also saw common themes in issues with which people were struggling, including digestive health, energy support and immune support. Garner added, “We said, ‘Hey, what if we were able to create a line of teas that actually provided a health benefit and worked together with their great amount of knowledge—one of the leading health publications in the world—along with our experience in Ayurvedic medicine and tea formulation. Could we create some products that tasted good so people would want to drink them, but also provided a clinically proven benefit?’” The two companies’ research and development teams collaborated to form a line of teas that support wellness and agreed to a partnership that included co-branding. Organic India also intends to expand its consumer base with this collaborative effort. They launched three teas. Two of the three are: Thrive, which provides energy support, and Balance, which supports digestive health. The energy support tea contains green tea, which provides sustained energy, rather than the jolt that energy drinks induce. It also has Ayurvedic herbs, such as tulsi and ashwagandha. The digestive aid tea contains ginger, which is known as a digestive tonic, along with Ganeden BC30 probiotic, which delivers a clinically proven immune health benefit, and peppermint. The partnership could result in additional new tea and herbal blends. Garner believes retailers can benefit in three ways. First of all, retailers can profit from selling teas that not only serve wellness purposes, but also taste good. “There are not many teas with the amount of clinical research that we’ve seen on these,” said Garner, who believes that this factor, along with the good taste of the teas, sets them apart. Secondly, though Organic India’s brand awareness is growing, the public awareness of Prevention has been established over the last 50 years. “A publication like Prevention has 10 to 20 times the awareness that our brand would have and it’s a well-known and trusted brand … So we think with that name it’s the kind of product that will drive people into the store … and actually buy [the tea], so I think it’s a traffic driver,” said Garner. The third reason is that medicinal teas are often placed with supplements and flavored teas are placed in the grocery section of stores. “We basically had the grocery and the supplement buyers vying for this because they both saw the fit and we said how do we use this as a way to bridge those two categories together and get consumers to think about supplementation beyond taking a capsule all the time. So I think from a retailer’s standpoint they can benefit by getting creative with how they bridge the two categories together,” said Garner. This new tea line allows for more freedom of product placement for grocers and can encourage consumers to transfer between retail categories and departments while shopping. “We think there’s a lot of opportunity for cross selling that could be good for basket size for retailers,” said Garner. Organic India is a Certified B Corporation, all of its products are 100 percent USDA Certified Organic, non-GMO, kosher and vegan. “So, the people that are out seeking the best-quality products know that they can trust us even though we’re partnering with another brand name,” said Garner.