18th April, 2007: Cook and Thurber audits
Each year we have an outside audit firm come to the plants and conduct a Food Safety Audit of the facility. We feel that our facilities are in great shape, but it never hurts to have someone else come in and do a reality check.
These folks will evaluate everything we do from the receiving of our materials, production of the tea bag, building conditions, maintenance of equipment, sanitation, and process controls.
Every year there seems to be one or two new items that gets identified for us to work on. Although you always want to score 100%, the reality is there is always something more you can do to improve.
A score above 90% is acceptable and we usually are between 92% and 94%.
We will keep trying for that perfect score.
Dean
Posted by Dean at 6:00 am | Comments (9)
9th April, 2007: Tea Bag Equipment Spring Cleaning
Each year we take our tea bag equipment apart and do a major part evaluation and replacement, almost like rebuilding your car engine. You would not think that tea could be that abrasive but when the machines are running at high speeds for a year tea tends to wear parts.
Not all tea companies take such a proactive approach to analyze/replace parts prior to problems, some only replace parts when they break. We believe by keeping our equipment in tip top shape all the time which allows us to control our process and give a more reliable tea bag to our consumers.
Dean
Posted by Dean at 6:00 am | Comments (11)
28th March, 2007: Tea Time Bigelow Tour
Diane Smith of Positively Connecticut recently visited Bigelow Tea and spent the day with Cindi Bigelow. Diane toured the plant, visited the test kitchen and took part in the quality control “slurp test.”
The Bigelow segment “Tea Time” will be featured March 31st at 6:30 pm on Connecticut Public Television (CPTV).
Please check your local Connecticut cable station for the channel in your specific area.
Posted by Liesl at 6:00 am | Comment (0)
22nd March, 2007: Bigelow’s Organic Green Tea: USDA and QAI seals
Did you know that Bigelow has certified Orgranic Green Tea and Organic Decaffeinated Green Tea?
One or our readers was curious how we classify the tea as organic, here is the answer:
Bigelow’s organic Green Teas are grown and produced in strict accordance with the organic industry’s hightest standards. As a result, the organic green teas have earned both the U.S. Departnment of Agriculture (USDA) and Quality Assurance International (QAI) seals.
Bigelow’s organic green tea is naturally grown and processed using natural fertilizers to maintain a healthly and safe growing environment while also working with socially responsible farmers who empahsize the conservation of the soil and water to enhance enviromental quality for future generations.
Bigelow is proud to be a part of the organic community!
Posted by Valorie at 2:26 am | Comment (1)
16th March, 2007: Safety Matters!
Working safely is something you can not do too much of. The Boise plant, which is doing extremely well with safety, has gone 965 days with out a lost time accident which is outstanding for a production facility.
The Bigelow company has taken many steps to help make our people and operation safe, from implementing the Dupont STOP training (a methodology that focuses on improving the conditions vs. focusing on people) to yearly plant inspections to name a couple.
The efforts in safety have been recognized by OSHA (OSHA is Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the government organization that regulates employment conditions to insure they are safe for workers) with their awarding the Boise plant the “SHARP Award”.
“Bigelow Tea has done an excellent job of safety and health management at its Boise facility,” said OSHA Regional Administrator Richard Terrill in Seattle. “The company has adopted safety as a business priority, working with employees and management towards improving their safety and health management system.”
The company, employees, and management take safety very seriously and it shows.
Posted by Dean at 6:00 am | Comment (1)
9th March, 2007: Thank you Bigelow Tea Drinkers!
I want to thank everyone for drinking Bigelow tea these last few months. On March 2nd we set an all time record of shipping 65,000 cases out in one day from our Louisville facility, which is 7,800,000 tea bags, that’s a lot of tea! The top four flavors were Green Tea, Earl Grey, Cozy Chamomile and Constant Comment.
Thanks again for choosing Bigelow tea as your drink.
Posted by Dean at 9:36 am | Comments (5)
7th March, 2007: Let us know what you think about Bigelow!
As much as we learn from our consumers and grow as a company, we still make production mistakes, and for those times our consumer service department is available when we do not meet consumer expectations.
Each box of tea has our corporate address, email address, and our toll free number, (888) 244-3569, so when our consumers want to contact us, there are many ways to do so. You can also reach us through the website.
Each month we sit down and look at each consumer complaint and identify where it occurred and then determine what we can do to eliminate them from happening again. We have reduced our issues but we need to hear from everyone if they are not satisfied with the product so we can make it even better.
Last year we made over 1 billion tea bags and had 772 consumer complaints, not bad but those 772 consumers were not happy so we still have room for improvement. Our goal is to make all our consumers happy and by listening to everyone we are taking steps to make that happen on and off line!
Posted by Dean at 8:35 am | Comments (17)
1st March, 2007: Nampa (Idaho) Red Hat Society
Recently the Boise facility was visited by a group of ladies from the Nampa Red Hat Society. As avid tea drinkers they wanted to see how Bigelow made Constant Comment and other teas. The groups watched a DVD showcasing the Charleston Tea Plantation growing and harvesting tea and then were able to follow tea through the production process.
The Red Hat Society philosophy is to have fun and this group sure promoted that idea to all those around them. It is refreshing to see people who enjoy life and take the extra time to find out about products they care about.
Posted by Dean at 6:25 pm | Comment (0)
23rd February, 2007: Tea Partnerships create Success!
Last week we had a kick off meeting with one of our vendors, Amgraph, to look at improving the inventory turns of their packaging product and improve our communication. Amgraph has been supplying products to Bigelow for over twenty years and the relationship has been outstanding. That does not mean it has always been great and there has been a lot of effort put in by both companies to improve the communication and work together on problems. Both companies have sent top management and hourly employees to each others plant to understand the issues and meet the people that supply/use their product.
For this meeting we had four people from each company look at how we currently order, store, and utilize the product. The process flow was charted and then we started to look for areas that could be shortened and improved. This was just the kick off meeting and we will continue to meet regularly to follow the recommendations and look for other opportunities to improve the process.
It is amazing the results a team can accomplish when they share a common focus and care about the product.
Posted by Dean at 6:28 am | Comment (0)
7th February, 2007: Packaging Bigelow Tea
Did you know that Bigelow currently packages over 60 different flavors of tea? Those flavors are available in the 20 count English box while many are available in Spanish or French boxes as well. We also package a 28 count box for restaurants and other food service customers. Our scheduling department has a heck of a time managing the production to make sure that all the products are available in our warehouse so when an order comes in from our customer we have product to ship. With that said our short shipments for the last six months has been at 99.5% or higher. After we fill and ship the customer’s order it still has to travel to their warehouse and then onto the local store, hopefully before the store’s shelf is out of product. That is a lot of traveling for a box of tea.
Posted by Dean at 6:00 am | Comments (4)
