Having not too long ago married into a family rooted in Alabama and Tennessee, I have become accustomed to having Milo’s #tea at every family occasion (and I appreciate that they buy jugs of the unsweet version in addition to the sweet they all love). So I particularly enjoyed the lunchtime speaker at #BevTech today, Tricia Wallwork, CEO of Milo's Tea Company, Inc., who talked about what drives the company forward.
It was never really the intent for Milo’s to be a #beverage company. Through the generations, this family-owned company has been driven by economic prosperity not only for themselves but also for the communities that they’re part of. It began with Tricia’s grandfather, Milo, who—after returning home from World War II, where he was an army cook—opened a restaurant selling burgers and fries in Birmingham, Ala. Tricia’s parents started franchising the restaurant in the 1980s. When her dad was looking to retire and sell the restaurants, the buyer didn’t want the tea, so he kept that.
Along the way, Wallwork traded in her high heels for some steel-toed boots, dropping her law career to take over the family business. Manufacturing space grew from about 3 acres to over 100 in 2020 at a new greenfield facility in Tulsa, Okla., then expanded further to a brownfield dairy facility to make #lemonade, and now is building another facility in Spartanburg, S.C.
Today, Milo’s is in all 50 states, at more than 50,000 retail locations across the country—doing just as well in Whole Foods as it does in Walmart. Regardless of how it grows, it’s still very much about communities, according to Wallwork, who talks about building institutions that make a positive impact in the world.
“Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a Pollyanna thing. We are a culture of very high accountability, high results, and high trust,” Wallwork says. “But we know that we are also there to help one another—whether that’s our external partners, our associates, or anyone that is in our ecosystem.”
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