Celestial Seasonings


Celestial Seasonings is a tea company based in Boulder, Colorado, United States that specializes in herbal teas, but also sells green, white, chai, and black teas. Their annual gross sales are approximately $100,000,000.

History

Celestial Seasonings founders Mo Siegel, John Hay, Peggy Clute and others started gathering herbs and flowers in the mountains around Boulder and selling them to local health-food stores in 1969. The company name was derived from co-founder Lucinda Ziesings' nickname.
In the 1970s, the company created herbal tea blends and moved to larger headquarters twice; by 1977 the company began selling internationally. Celestial Seasonings also created and sponsored the Red Zinger Bicycle Classic race in Colorado during the 1970s.
Celestial Seasonings was purchased by Kraft Foods in 1984. Mo Siegel retired in 1986, and the next year, Kraft announced they would sell Celestial Seasonings to Lipton. The sale was successfully challenged by Bigelow under anti-trust laws, and local management purchased the company back from Kraft in 1988.
In 1990, Celestial Seasonings moved into new headquarters in a custom-designed facility in North Boulder. Mo Siegel returned in 1991, to serve as CEO.
Celestial Seasonings merged with natural food company the Hain Food Group in 2000 to form the Hain Celestial Group. Mo Siegel retired for the second time in 2002.

Legal issues

In 2013 Hain Celestial became one of 25 companies targeted in an ongoing class action lawsuit regarding allegations of falsely labeling their personal care products as 'organic' under California law to mislead consumers into purchasing them.
In 2015 Hain Celestial Group reached a settlement and agreed to pay consumers a $7.5 million compensation for mislabeling their products with an additional $2.4 million worth of coupons.