Purpose at Every Step: Rethinking the Tea Supply Chain

We are thrilled to share that at this year's North American Tea Conference 2026, we received recognition in the Sustainability Awards category. Here's how we have worked to make tea more sustainable at every step.

Relevant UN Sustainable Development Goals in our initiatives:
SDG 1 - No Poverty
SDG 5 - Gender Equality
SDG 6 - Clean Water and Sanitation
SDG 8 - Decent Work and Economic Growth
SDG 11 - Sustainable Cities and Communities
SDG 12 - Responsible Consumption and Production
SDG 13 - Climate Action
SDG 14 - Life Below Water
SDG 15 - Life on Land
SDG 17 - Partnerships for the Goals

The Issue

Tea has an unusually long journey from field to cup. For a Canadian tea company, that creates interconnected sustainability challenges - global transportation, agricultural impacts, single-use packaging, food waste, and limited visibility into the lives of the people who grow and harvest tea.

Pluck Tea saw an opportunity to rethink this model rather than address one issue in isolation.

Our goal has been to build sustainability into the entire lifecycle of our tea: developing direct relationships with responsible tea producers, supporting communities at origin, sourcing Canadian-grown ingredients, creating supply-chain loops that upcycle food by-products, eliminating petroleum-based plastic from our tea bags, recovering more plastic than we produce, and blending and packing our teas in our own sky-lit Toronto facility.

The result is a sustainability model designed around a simple principle: every step from field to cup presents an opportunity to create positive impact.

Design of the Intervention

Rather than treating sustainability as a separate initiative, we designed our model around a question: where can we have the greatest influence over the journey from field to cup?

For Pluck, the answer was to build closer relationships at origin, shorten and localize our supply chain wherever practical, create circular uses for food by-products, control our own production, and address plastic we cannot yet eliminate.

Responsible sourcing and direct farm relationships

We prioritize direct relationships with tea producers because they provide greater transparency into how tea is grown and processed while allowing us to choose partners whose environmental and social practices align with our values.

In Japan, we source directly from producers in Kagoshima, Shizuoka, Uji and Nagasaki. Our long-term Kagoshima matcha partner demonstrates why this model works. The Rainforest Alliance Certified producer grows, harvests, processes, grinds, packs and ships from one vertically integrated operation, reducing intermediary transportation while improving traceability, freshness and consistency.

Sustainability is embedded in their production. Instead of chemical pesticides, the farm developed the Hurricane King, which uses water to mimic typhoon-like conditions to naturally remove pests. Stems separated during tea production are upcycled into organic fertilizer and returned to the fields.

Creating circular and local supply chains

Instead of automatically sourcing ingredients through international wholesalers, we look for opportunities closer to home. Canadian food makers and farms transform citrus peels, cacao shells and imperfectly sized or shaped Ontario apples into ingredients for our teas.

Today, we use more than 350 kg of upcycled ingredients annually, including approximately 130,000 cacao shells and 140,000 citrus peels.

Taking responsibility for production

We hand-blend and pack our teas in our own Toronto facility rather than outsourcing production. Keeping production close to our largest customer concentration reduces transportation while giving us direct control over quality, traceability and waste.

Our production area is naturally illuminated by skylights, with LED lighting used when additional light is required. When we discovered our building had no recycling program, we established one for all tenants and continue to lead it today.

Addressing the plastic we cannot eliminate

After reducing plastic where possible - including using plant-based compostable tea bags - we partnered with CleanHub to address the plastic we cannot yet eliminate. We are plastic-negative as we fund the recovery of more plastic than we produce, with independently verified and publicly tracked results.

As of September 2026, Pluck has funded the recovery of 20,323 kg of plastic waste - equivalent to over 1,000,000 x 500 ml plastic bottles - with approximately 20,500 kg targeted by year-end. Live impact report

Together, these interventions follow one principle: reduce what we can, shorten the distance where possible, turn by-products into resources, and measure the impact we cannot eliminate.

Impact

Our sustainability model creates measurable environmental and social impact from tea-growing regions to our sky-lit Toronto production facility.

As of August 2026, Pluck has funded the recovery of plastic waste - equivalent to more than 1 million 500 ml plastic water bottles - through CleanHub. Through our CleanHub partnership, we are a plastic-negative organization. Our Canadian upcycling partnerships repurpose 350+ kg of ingredients annually, including approximately 130,000 cacao shells and 140,000 citrus peels.

Our direct sourcing relationships extend across Japan, including Kagoshima, Shizuoka, Uji and Nagasaki, with sustainable and circular practices incorporated at farm level.

In Rwanda, Pluck purchases more than 5,000 kg of RMT tea annually. Every kilogram generates a $0.50 USD contribution to RMT’s charitable initiatives, representing more than $2,500 USD annually and directly connecting the growth of our Rwandan tea program with increased investment at origin.

Validation

Third-party certification, traceability and measurable reporting help us validate our sustainability claims.

Plastic recovery is tracked through CleanHub’s publicly accessible impact platform. CleanHub is verified by TÜV SÜD according to ISO 14064-3, providing independent validation of its plastic recovery methodology. Live impact report

Our organic teas are independently certified by Pro-Cert in Canada, while our Toronto production facility operates under third-party audited GFSI/SQF food-safety and traceability standards. Every ingredient and production batch is recorded through our traceability systems.

Our long-term Kagoshima partner is Rainforest Alliance Certified and produces tea meeting Canadian organic requirements, which is verified through Pro-Cert Canada and a third-party lab, Eurofins.

Rwanda Mountain Tea holds certifications including Rainforest Alliance, ECOCERT, ISO 22000:2018 and HACCP. Its gender-equality practices have also been assessed through Rwanda’s RS 560:2023 Gender Equality Standard, providing external validation of workplace initiatives.

Hurdles to Success

One of our greatest challenges has been proving that more sustainable alternatives can meet the same food-safety, quality and operational standards as conventional supply chains.

Upcycling, for example, requires more than finding an available food by-product. We need partners capable of separating, processing and drying ingredients to precise food-grade specifications while maintaining traceability and consistency.

Packaging presented similar challenges. Plant-based tea bag materials and locally produced packaging needed to perform reliably in both foodservice and retail environments.

Direct sourcing requires deeper relationships, longer planning horizons and greater engagement with producers than purchasing finished products through conventional wholesalers.

We addressed these hurdles through long-term collaboration. Rather than accepting available solutions, we work directly with food makers, farms and suppliers to develop systems that meet our standards. Bringing blending and packing in-house has further increased our ability to adapt, test and improve.

Collaboration

Collaboration has been essential to turning our sustainability goals into practical programs. Rather than developing initiatives internally and asking suppliers to accommodate them, we work directly with farmers, food makers, manufacturers and environmental organizations to understand what is achievable and build solutions together.

Canadian farms, food makers and manufacturers

We regularly visit family farms to develop direct relationships with growers and identify opportunities to incorporate Canadian-grown ingredients into our teas. These relationships allow us to better understand how ingredients are grown and processed while working collaboratively with farmers to find creative uses for ingredients that might otherwise go unused.

A great example is our relationship with Martin’s Family Fruit Farm in Waterloo, Ontario. The farm takes apples that are imperfect in size or shape and transforms them into dried apple pieces which we blend into our teas. This gives perfectly good Canadian-grown fruit a valuable second use while providing us with a locally sourced ingredient for our blends.

We apply the same circular thinking with other Canadian food makers. Local juice producers reserve citrus peels and dry them to our specifications, while bean-to-bar chocolate makers separate and prepare cacao shells for our teas. Together, we establish requirements for processing, food safety, traceability, flavour and consistency. Across these partnerships, we now use more than 350 kg of upcycled ingredients annually.

Our Canadian collaboration extends beyond ingredients. We work with local manufacturers to produce our pouches, labels, corrugated shipping materials and gift boxes. Keeping these parts of our supply chain closer to our Toronto production facility reduces transportation distances and associated emissions while supporting other Canadian businesses.

Tea producers at origin

Across Japan, we work directly with producers in Kagoshima, Shizuoka, Uji and Nagasaki, visiting farms and producers to learn about cultivation and processing, evaluate harvests and develop long-term sourcing relationships.

Our decade-long collaboration with our vertically integrated Kagoshima matcha partner demonstrates how these relationships influence our sourcing model. Growing, harvesting, processing, grinding and packing take place within one operation, improving traceability and reducing intermediary handling. Their sustainable solutions - including the Hurricane King for pesticide-free pest removal and the reuse of tea stems as organic fertilizer - demonstrate that exceptional tea quality and environmental responsibility can work together.

Our relationship with Rwanda Mountain Tea has similarly developed beyond purchasing. Pluck now purchases more than 5,000 kg annually and contributes $0.50 USD per kilogram to RMT’s charitable initiatives - more than $2,500 USD annually at current volumes. The contribution model scales automatically as our purchasing grows, while RMT’s broader investments in clean water, childcare and gender equality reinforce our decision to continue growing the relationship.

Packaging and plastic recovery

Our partnership with CleanHub allows us to address plastic we cannot yet eliminate by funding the recovery of more plastic than we produce and has helped us become plastic negative.

As of September 2026, Pluck has funded the recovery of 20,323 kg of plastic waste - equivalent to more than 1 million 500 ml plastic bottles. Recovery is transparently tracked through CleanHub’s public impact platform and independently verified by TÜV SÜD according to ISO 14064-3.

Across these initiatives, our approach is consistent: find partners with complementary expertise, develop practical solutions together, measure the results, and strengthen the program as the relationship grows.

Transparency

We believe sustainability claims should be specific, measurable and accessible.

Live CleanHub impact report

Our CleanHub impact dashboard is publicly available and reports plastic recovery as it occurs. We publish information about our compostable tea bags, upcycling partnerships, Canadian ingredients and direct sourcing relationships through our website, newsletters, product pages and social media.

We identify specific partners and explain how programs work rather than relying solely on broad terms such as “sustainable” or “ethical.”

Importantly, we distinguish between Pluck’s direct impact and the broader impact of our partners. For example, we disclose our purchase of 5,000+ kg of RMT tea and $0.50 USD/kg contribution separately from RMT’s organization-wide worker, childcare and environmental programs.

Transparency to us means celebrating the impact our purchasing helps support without claiming responsibility for work that belongs to our partners.

Transferability

Perhaps the most transferable part of Pluck’s sustainability model is that these initiatives do not require sustainability to operate as a separate department or one-time project.

They begin with purchasing decisions.

Our upcycling model can be replicated anywhere food businesses operate near one another. A by-product from one producer can become an ingredient for another if businesses collaborate on food safety, processing, specifications and traceability. Citrus peel and cacao shells work for tea, but the same approach could connect breweries, coffee roasters, bakeries, juice companies, restaurants and other manufacturers.

Our responsible sourcing model is equally transferable. Smaller companies may not have the purchasing power to transform an agricultural industry, but they can choose suppliers whose practices align with their values, establish direct relationships, ask better questions and connect purchasing with measurable community investment.

The $0.50 USD/kg Rwanda contribution model is particularly straightforward to reproduce: tie social investment directly to purchasing volume. Pluck currently purchases more than 5,000 kg of Rwanda Mountain Tea annually, generating more than $2,500 USD in annual contributions. As our purchasing grows, the contribution automatically grows with it. This creates a simple, measurable model in which commercial success and investment at origin are directly connected.

Our Japanese partnerships demonstrate another opportunity: shortening agricultural supply chains through direct sourcing and vertical integration. Tea can pass through growers, processors, brokers, packers and distributors before reaching a tea company. Where possible, working directly with vertically integrated producers can reduce intermediary transportation and handling while improving traceability, communication and quality control.

Our plastic recovery partnership demonstrates another accessible model. Companies that cannot immediately eliminate every piece of plastic from their operations can measure their footprint, reduce what they can, and fund independently verified recovery beyond the amount they produce.

Finally, our Canadian sourcing demonstrates that an imported agricultural product can still develop a meaningful local supply chain. Tea may not commercially grow in Canada, but many fruits, herbs, packaging materials and services surrounding it can.

The greatest barrier to replication is rarely technology. It is finding the right partners and being willing to rethink established purchasing habits.

Communication

We believe sustainability communication should be specific, measurable and supported by evidence. Rather than relying on broad claims, we aim to show our customers exactly what we are doing, who we are working with, and the measurable impact of those initiatives.

Our partnership with CleanHub is a strong example. A live CleanHub kilogram tracker appears at the bottom of every marketing email we send, giving our customers an ongoing view of the amount of plastic recovery we have funded. We also link to CleanHub’s public impact platform, where these results can be independently viewed and verified. As of September 2026, this represents 20,323 kg of plastic waste - equivalent to more than one million 500 ml plastic bottles.

CleanHub Live impact report

We also use social media, videos, newsletters and educational content to bring customers closer to our sourcing relationships. Rather than simply stating that we “source directly” or “support farmers,” we share real photographs and videos of our team in tea fields, visiting farms, meeting producers and learning about their growing and processing practices firsthand. We similarly show our Canadian partners and the processes behind our locally sourced and upcycled ingredients.

CANADIAN APPLES SOURCING VIDEO

MATCHA SOURCING VIDEO

OOLONG SOURCING VIDEO

PLASTIC-FREE TEA BAGS VIDEO

Where an initiative belongs to a partner, we give that partner credit. For example, we clearly distinguish Pluck’s purchasing and $0.50 USD/kg contribution to Rwanda Mountain Tea from the broader childcare, clean water and gender-equality programs operated by RMT.

Our goal is to make sustainability visible and verifiable - show the work, share the numbers, identify the partners, and communicate our role accurately.