Agreement concluded: Evonik’s collaboration with Unilever extended

• An eco-friendly process
• Jobs secured

For 25 years now, Lipton—a Unilever subsidiary and the world's premier tea supplier—has been relying on the special expertise of the Advanced Intermediates Business Unit, which is an arm of Essen, Germany-based Evonik Industries, for decaffeinating its black, green, and cold-brew teas. Lipton is the world market leader in decaffeinated teas, which are in particularly high demand on the North American market.

The two parties, Lipton and Evonik, will continue their successful collaboration seamlessly on the basis of a new agreement. "With this agreement, we’ll be expanding the tea business with Lipton significantly over the next few years," explained Dr. Manfred Schmidt, product manager at Evonik.

At its Münchsmünster site in Upper Bavaria, Evonik uses a special extraction process that employs supercritical carbon dioxide (CO2) at high pressure to remove caffeine and any harmful substances from tea while nearly fully retaining the constituents that give it its flavor and health-promoting properties. Compared to traditional methods, this process is particularly gentle, easy on the environment, and efficient with resources. The Münchsmünster tea decaffeination plant has received International Food Standard (IFS) certification from the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Qualität (German Society for Quality).

"Evonik has been a tremendously reliable partner of ours for several years and supplies decaffeinated tea of the highest quality," said Gilbert Kendzior, Tea and Herbals Supply Manager at Lipton.

From this base, the two companies plan to extend their collaboration beyond tea decaffeination to other products and applications in the Unilever Group's food and beverages sector.

"The new agreement with Lipton is another important element in implementing our growth strategy in the global nutrition market," says Dr. Thomas Sauer, head of the Custom Manufacturing Agro market segment. "In the years ahead, moreover, the agreement will contribute significantly toward utilizing the plant at our Münchsmünster site."