Success brewing for young Black Isle entrepreneur whose tea business tickles taste buds around the world
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When Jade Etherington-Bennett decided to start her own tea business from her home on the Black Isle, she only expected to sell a few packets a week.
Instead, she has found customers around the world have responded to the Brew Natural blends she has carefully selected.
“In terms of customers, I’ve lost count really. We’ve probably had 2000 or 3000 customers and probably sold 60,000 teabags,” the 29-year-old said.
As well as the UK, she has had orders from the United Arab Emirates, the USA and Australia, where an endorsement from a leading nutritionalist has boosted interest in Brew Natural’s products.
The business has taken off so quickly that she now plans to devote herself to Brew Natural full time.
And with a financial prediction estimating a six-figure turnover in her first year, Miss Etherington-Bennett is now looking at moving production out of her home and into its own unit and taking on her first member of staff .
Starting her own business is something completely new for Miss Etherington-Bennett, who was brought up in Forres and previously worked in procurement for Capgemini in Inverness.
She was working at a supermarket in Inverness at the start of last year when she first began thinking seriously about going into business for herself.
“With everything that happened, it just got put on the backburner and I just continued working at the supermarket, just because it was so busy and I felt bad quitting part way through a pandemic. Then as things eased off a bit, I put more time into it,” she explained.
She was inspired to begin Brew Natural by the benefits she has felt from herbal solutions for some health issues of her own, and a background that includes studying nutrition and herbal remedies.
“I just discovered a few things that worked for me and I thought I could help a few people if I could make a company out of this and sell these natural teas and remedies,” she explained.
“But then I thought it shouldn’t only be teas to fix things. I also thought I should do the usual teas and things like a normal breakfast tea, and a hot chocolate, and it just expanded from there.”
True to its name, Brew Natural aims to be not only beneficial for its customers, but as environmentally friendly as possible.
Although Miss Etherington-Bennett buys her tea from UK wholesalers, she tries to source other ingredients as locally as she can.
She also makes a point of using paper drawstring tea bags, without the microplastic elements found in commercial tea bags.
“The whole company is plastic-free and everything is as eco as possible,” she said.
“Not only is plastic bad for the environment, it’s also bad because when you add hot water to teabags, it releases the plastic particles, then you are drinking that.
“If you have health issues, it can set them off, and you wouldn’t realise it was because of plastic contamination.”
She also aims to keep prices reasonable, retailing for around £3 per packet.
“The reason I started this was because I found something that helped with my symptoms and I wanted to help other people,” she said.
“There are people selling teas out there for £12 or £14 a packet. That’s a total rip off. You don’t have to be so expensive.”
So far, sales have been through the Brew Natural website, but she also hopes to sell locally through farmers’ markets and perhaps eventually from her own unit.
But the fun part is in creating her own flavours, with Brew Natural now offering a choice of 14.
“I’ve never drunk so much tea in my life, I can tell you that,” she laughed.
“I’m constantly researching the best ingredients to put in tea. It’s interesting to find how, even from a slightly different location, the tea leaves taste different.”
She has also been experimenting with chocolate flavours.
“That was great fun!” she added.
“There are so many teas I want to do. I’m now just so interested in the herbal side of things.”
