Black Friday done properly

By now you'll have received hundreds of emails from brands you love (and plenty from those you don't) promising everything from exclusive discounts to free gifts, daily 'surprise' deals to buy-one-get-five offers. That's right, it's Black Friday. But what was once a single day of one-time-only offers then spilled over into Cyber Monday too, and now it seems the whole of November is just one big, pre-Christmas discounting frenzy. 

So where do we stand on it? The very idea of Black Friday pushing consumers to 'buy buy buy' no doubt promotes a culture of mindless overconsumption, and the effect it has on people and planet is not to be underestimated. Indeed its impact is felt well beyond the end of the deals, with a flood of returns then leading to greater emissions and wasted packaging too. None of those are things we would ever wish to encourage - rather we work hard as a business to promote the very opposite.

That said, whenever we debated as a team its relevance for us as a business, we found ourselves torn. Our customers are incredibly loyal, buying our teas at full price, year-round, because they recognise the value in the product - they pay for better quality and flavour in their cup, from a brand that is working to build a thriving and sustainable tea industry for the future. We therefore wanted to reward that loyalty, and liked the idea of encouraging those same customers to share our teas with friends and family during the gifting season. Critically, we also took comfort knowing that buying a whole load of delicious tea wasn't going to do harm to either people or planet, but rather deliver slightly more frequent cupfuls of joy to the lucky recipient. It was with all that in mind that in previous years we have offered some pretty 'deep' discounts over the Black Friday weekend, which perhaps you too may have taken advantage of. 

For the past few years, we've approached things differently. On the one hand, we feel even more passionate about rewarding the ongoing loyalty of our customers - for continuing to buy good tea at a time when everyone is under pressure to spend less. On the other, tackling climate change has never been more urgent and even just using a 'spend more, save more' mechanic is contributing to a toxic mindset of overconsumption. The current cost of living crisis is also having a catastrophic impact on millions of people's lives, with those from low-income households being hit the hardest. There's a lot to worry about at the moment, and we therefore felt we could do better this time around.

For our Black Friday sale this year we're offering a more modest 10% off our full range - that bit is for our customers - and that same percentage will also be donated to The Felix Project - a charity working hard to fight a war on two fronts - hunger and food waste. For the first time in history, demand for food banks is now outstripping supply, and their Empty Plate Emergency Appeal seeks to raise urgent funds to help get food to the millions of people at risk of going hungry this winter. 

Read more about the incredible work that The Felix Project is doing here, and if your tea supplies are in need of a top-up then shop our sale here to make this Black Friday count. 

From midnight on Friday until midnight on Monday, 10% of every sale will be donated to The Felix Project.