Market Potential for Made Tea Produced by People’s Collectives and Strategies to Secure Competitive Advantage

The last few decades have witnessed a radical shift in the tea production system, from one that was predominantly estate-based to one that is increasingly based on small tea growers (STGs). The STGs, as per official records, are now contributing about 26 per cent of India’s tea production. However, STGs are as yet passive components of the emerging tea value chain, having no capacity to influence the value chain in any way. Their contribution largely ends in supplying the green leaf they produced to a bought leaf factory (BLF) or to an estate factory. They are at the lowest part of the tea value chain. Other components of the tea value chain like manufacturing, auctioning, branding and marketing are outside the reach of the small growers.