Milo’s Tea enjoys sweet Southern taste of success in Alabama on National Iced Tea Day
Milo's Tea CEO Tricia Wallwork presides over a continually expanding and diversifying lineup of tea products. (Michael Tomberlin/Alabama NewsCenter)
On this National Iced Tea Day, you don’t have to read the tea leaves to know which maker of the pre-made Southern brew is most infused in Alabama and the Southeast.
Milo’s is a name long known for hamburgers with a secret sauce, but it turns out the real secret may be in the brewing of the Southern elixir that is sweet tea.
Milos Sweet Tea brewing up more business from Alabama NewsCenter on Vimeo.
When Milo Carlton opened the first Milo’s Hamburger Shop in Birmingham in 1946 after returning from World War II, the sauce was special but so were other touches like handmade pies, customer service and pre-sweetened tea.
One holdover from the Great Depression and the war was the rationing of staples like sugar. In restaurants, people still added their own sugar to each glass of tea. Carlton’s wife, Bea, needed sugar for the pies, and having a sugar bowl at every table meant there was sugar sitting around not being used.
So Carlton decided to blend the sugar into the tea and serve it already sweet. It was a hit and has remained so ever since.
Fast-forward to 1989. What was by then a large, successful burger chain began brewing and distributing its Milo’s Famous Sweet Tea in gallon jugs to Birmingham-area stores. In 2006, the company introduced its Unsweet Tea and its No-Calorie Tea.
For the next decade, Milo’s Tea grew from Birmingham to other parts of Alabama and the Southeast and then to other states. It also added smaller, individual containers to the lineup.
“Now you can find Milo’s Tea from Fairbanks, Alaska, to Miami and from San Diego to (Washington) D.C.,” said Milo’s Tea CEO Tricia Wallwork, the granddaughter of Milo and Bea. “We love our sweet tea in the South, but let me tell you, they love it up North, too.”
Milo’s Café Style Organic Teas will soon hit the market, adding four more choices to the company’s range of refreshing beverages. (Brittany Faush-Johnson/Alabama NewsCenter)
Sales prove that to be true. Wallwork said Milo’s Tea is doubling sales every five years and its manufacturing and distribution operations are constantly expanding.
“When we started here in Bessemer, we had three-and-a-half acres and 30,000 square feet,” she said. “Today, we have 15 acres and 150,000 square feet.”
Also growing is the product line.
In 2014, Milo’s added lemonade, decaffeinated sweet tea and a blend of lemonade and sweet.
“Those products came after listening to our customers and what they were wanting,” Wallwork said. “The same is true for the new products.”
Those new products are four U.S. Department of Agriculture-certified Café Style Organic Teas. Instead of the familiar gallon jugs, the new organic teas are packaged in 59-ounce carafes. The new teas come in Sweet, Light Sweet, Green Citrus and Light Green Citrus flavors. The teas are sweetened with certified-organic cane sugar or a blend of organic cane sugar and organic stevia.
“Our loyal Milo’s customers reached out to us,” Wallwork said. “They called, emailed, contacted us through social media and communicated to their local grocery stores that they wanted the same great Milo’s Tea flavor using organic ingredients and also green teas. So that’s what we have created.”
Wallwork said Milo’s Tea has always brewed its products with all-natural ingredients, so organic was a natural and easy extension of the brand. The new containers did require some adjustments to the bottling and packaging lines. The new teas are making their way through distributors now and will begin arriving in Alabama stores in the coming weeks.
The USDA National Organic Program has verified that the ingredients and the brewing and bottling processes all comply with the USDA organic regulations.
So, it’s organic, but is it good?
If it’s awards or recognition you need, Milo’s Tea has been there, done that and got the “tea shirt.”
At the recent North American Tea Championship in Los Angeles, Milo’s swept the “Ready to Drink Sweet Tea” category.
Milo’s Famous Sweet Tea took the top spot, the new Milo’s Café Style Light Sweet placed second and Milo’s M59 took third. Milo’s Sweet Tea & Lemonade and Milo’s Café Style Green Citrus both scored third in their respective categories.
“You don’t have be a Southerner to recognize good sweet tea,” Wallwork said.
For National Iced Tea Day, Milo’s is giving away a year’s worth of its tea to three winners through its three social media accounts. You can register today at Milo’s Tea’s Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts.
