Lipton is one of the world’s best-known and best-selling brands of both hot leaf and ready-to-drink tea. It is currently owned by Unilever.
Lipton was created at the end of the 19th century by Sir Thomas Lipton in Glasgow, Scotland. His enterprise soon flourished and he established a chain of grocers, first across Glasgow, the rest of Scotland, until finally he had stores throughout Britain.
Under the slogan “direct from the tea gardens to the tea pot”, this entrepreneurial businessman wanted to make tea a popular and approachable drink for everyone – with a high quality but reasonably priced product.
In 1929, the Lipton grocery retail business merged with the Home and Colonial chain, as well as Maypole Dairies among others, to form Allied Suppliers. Lipton’s became a supermarket chain focused on small towns, before Allied’s 1982 acquisition by Argyll Group: the supermarket business was rebranded as Presto during the 1980s.
