An entrepreneur’s story of experience with the “Ideas Powered for Business” SME fund administered by the Latvian Patent Office.
In Saulessēta, Prauliena parish, the Plūkt company prepares excellent wild herbal teas and demonstrates how a bold idea, expressive trademark, and understanding of the healing power of natural herbs can turn a small, cozy tea house in the Latvian countryside into the respectable player on the world tea market, which is known and appreciated in 22 countries of Europe, Asia, Australia, Africa, and the United States.
The founders of the company are Līga and Māra Lieplapas, mother and daughter respectively. Proviously, the environmental scientist Līga had created a natural laboratory for her own pleasure, where teas and spices were made from medicinal plants, but Māra broadened the horizons for the family business.
The first sprouts of Northern tea culture
“Due to the study exchange program of the BA School of Business and Finance, I happened to get to China. Of course, I was interested in technological innovations and experiences of local startups. However, being in the country with the tea appreciation rituals developed for thousands of years, I also tried to get to know more about this culture. Tasting the products of Chinese tea makers available on the wide and diverse tea market, I thought of more than a thousand of tea herbs that are picked in Latvian meadows in summer. We don’t have cultivated plantations of tea trees, but we have a natural environment and the knowledge of making aromatic, strengthening, and healthy teas from wild herbs,” Māra highlights the first sprouts in the Northern tea culture garden.
The creation of the company began somewhat unconventionally - not with the search for premises and drying and packaging equipment, but with the efforts to materialize the dreamed-of business vision into an expressive brand. Māra explains: “Thanks to Līga’s experience, the practical side of this undertaking was clear, and first of all, the most important thing for us was to create a brand that would open new substantial and geographical horizons for our herbal teas. When we thought about addressing customers abroad, the general attitude toward herbal teas as useful only if you catch a cold or go to sauna, seemed too narrow to us.”
The amazing fireweed at the World Tea Forum
It seems that herbal teas are not only healthy, but also encouraging, because the first international presentation of the company from Prauliena was on the global stage of the World Tea Forum that took place in China. Their small stand squeezed between the runways of the world major tea brands, Līga and Māra, smiling mysteriously, welcomed the visitors with... the Latvian black tea or Nordic Black tea. It is similar to traditional cultivated Asian tea with a noticeable and long-lasting invigorating effect but it does not contain caffeine. Prominent tea masters from China, Japan and Singapore stopped at the northerners’ stand, sipped and slurped the drink being unable to understand how such unusual flavours and aftertastes could be extracted from the leaves of the tea tree. Of course, they could not even imagine that an excellent black tea can also be made from fermented fireweeds picked in Prauliena.
The positive assessment by the Asian tea masters gave the company the confidence to take the next steps. After half a year of creative cooperation with designers, the laconic and, at the same time, very meaningful Plūkt brand originated. It hit the bull’s eye since the phonetic and conceptual similarity of this word with the verb “to pluck” in English and in some other Germanic languages turned to be very useful for the export-oriented brand.
“At first, we were confused by this name,” Līga admits and goes on, “Now we are glad that we had relied on the cooperation with the professional designers.” It should be noted that the laconic Plūkt became a laureate of the Trademark of the Year 2018 competition organized by the Latvian Patent Office (LPO), the Latvian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, and the Latvian Designers’ Society, having received its sympathy award. Participation in this competition is not only a good opportunity to learn about the experiences of other successful Latvian entrepreneurs, but also increases credibility. “For clients working in international markets, it is often difficult to understand which company is a real one and which is a virtual bubble. The recognition gained at the nationwide business competition provides a more secure basis for building cooperation,” explains Līga.
The refreshing fruits of intellectual property
Prauliena’s tea house owns the registered trademarks Plūkt, Nordic tea, Nordic black, Nordic green, and almost 20 packaging designs. Therefore, practically each tea variety created in Saulessēta has a packaging design corresponding to its content and mood. Basically, entrepreneurs protect their intellectual property (IP) themselves. “The registration process at the LPO is easy, understandable, and the employees are supportive. If there is an error in the application, the experts contact us immediately, and we solve everything quickly. We also use the financial support of the SME fund “Ideas Powered for business” administered by the LPO, and the registration costs are small. However, there are countries where IP registration has its own specificity and requires additional consultations with patent attorneys, e. g., in China, Australia, Korea, also in African countries. There are countries where the first who applies for the trademark becomes its owner. Elsewhere, scrupulous research and evaluation is carried out before registration. In Canada, we received a registration refusal because, as it turns out, there is one tea company with the name phonetically similar to our PLŪKT, so we use the brand Nordic tea there”, says Māra adding that all that time and energy invested in the development and protection of IP pays off. “In our case, the packaging designs went ahead attracting new customers in different countries of the world,” she states.
And what customers they are! In February this year, the American movie star Drew Barrymore included Plūkt’s balancing tea blend Blossom, which combines the flavours and aromas of wild meadow and woodland flowers, in her list of gift suggestions on her social media account. The acknowledgment had a commercial effect, and the compliment from such a powerful influencer increased Blossom’s fan base.
Being happy about the movie diva’s assessment, Māra and Līga are free from vanity. They modestly conclude that the way to successful coincidences in business is paved with hard work. “Last year, we opened our own warehouse in the USA. Orders are now delivered in just two to three days, and sales on our e-commerce platforms are growing. Appreciation from new customers creates something like a snowball effect, which, as it turns out, even attracts stars of Drew Barrymore’s level,” Mara entangles the cause-and-effect chain.
The popularity of the company’s new product - cold tea - can also be considered a success earned through hard work. The drink was created for warm summer evenings, but our first winter sales show that the vitamin-rich drink is also useful in cool weather. It can be prepared quickly using cold fresh water. It contains antioxidants such as blueberry, peppermint, and fermented fireweed leaves.
The biology lesson in nature
The stable aspect of the Plukt brand is a natural, green production cycle. The sun and wind energy are used to dry tea herbs. The packaging is made of recyclable material, while the tea bags are made of plant fibre which decomposes in nature within 30 - 60 days. To pick tea herbs, the company cooperates with more than 30 certified organic farms. Līga is convinced that when you interest children in collecting plants, it becomes a valuable natural science lesson: “In cooperation with the educational institutions in Saulessēta, we invite students to our tea master classes. We go to nature, learn how to recognize plants and their valuable properties. We notice that not only urban, but also rural children often are more familiar with the virtual environment than with the natural one. On the other hand, walking through a meadow or a forest, getting to know and observing the amazing beauty and diversity that thrives and lives is a biology lesson in itself, which gives not only practical knowledge, but creates an emotional connection with the surrounding living space, our land.”