McLeod Russel


McLeod Russel India Ltd is an Indian tea company. It is currently the world's largest tea growing company.
It is part of the Williamson Magor Group. It has forty-eight tea estates in the Brahmaputra Valley of Assam and five in the Dooars region of West Bengal, three factories in Vietnam, six estates in Uganda and the management control of the world Gisovu estate in Rwanda.
The company is related to Williamson Magor & Company Ltd. It claims to produce more than 100 million kilograms of quality black tea every year.

History

The company was started in 1869 by two Calcutta-based Englishmen, Captain J.H. Williamson and Richard Boycott Magor, as a partnership - named Williamson Magor & Company. The Company's main objective was to serve the requirements of British empire from the tea estates in Assam. Brij Mohan Khaitan, who had been the principal supplier of packaging materials and fertilizers, was invited to join the Board of Directors in 1963 and in 1964 B. M. Khaitan eventually became the Managing Director.
Over the next half-century, the group acquired other tea companies, including Williamson Tea Assam, Doom Dooma Tea Company, Moran Tea Company, Phu Ben Tea Company, Rwenzori Tea Investments and Pfunda Tea Company. Its subsidiary Borelli Tea Holdings took over management control of Gisovu Tea Company Limited in 2011.
It has another subsidiary in Uganda, Mcleod Russel Uganda Limited which cultivates, manufactures and markets tea. It was formerly known as James Finlay Limited. The company was founded in 1994 and is based in Kampala. As of 18 January 2010, Mcleod Russel Uganda Limited operated as a subsidiary of Borelli Tea Holdings Ltd.

Operations

The company operates blending facilities in Nilpur in North-East India and in Dubai.