Lyons square bags

Glaceon

I see Lyons have changed their packaging and gone back to square tea bags. Must be the first time in about 30 years that they've been square. I remember them changing to round in the 90s before the pyramid bags came in. I wonder why they changed, cost saving maybe?

blackbox

Maybe they won't burst as easily as the pyramid ones.

I gave up buying Lyons teabags because they burst so often.

magicbastarder

no change in the branding, was there? we were recently able to get several boxes of loose leaf lyon's tea in tesco recently, heavily discounted, but with plenty of life left in the best before date.

we thought it might have been related to the facelift they were doing in some of the stores, but if they were changing the bags as part of a rebranding it might explain it.

Glaceon

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121248649#Comment_121248649

Yes, new packaging and logo too.

techman1

Maybe difficulties in the packaging plant with pyramid bags ,probably a lot of waste etc in the plant, therefore revert to square bags for efficiency. I think price and raw material prices a bigger factor now than consumer stuff. There is a lack of production capacity in all industry therefore don't need to spend so much appealing to consumer fads

Butson

Bought Lyons Gold yesterday, new bags and packaging.

I'd swear its different, not as strong at all.

SilvaMuppet

Yeah, got the gold blend in the shopping delivery the other day and thought I'd made a mistake.

Green box and square bags.....thought it was the classic blend....there was panic in this house.

Kids were accusing me of getting the "wrong stuff" (they are pretty militant about their tea....no barrys cos its muck and has to be gold blend)

Once cooler heads prevailed we realized there must be a rebrand as it says Gold blend on the box....weirdly though it seems to taste different, we can't figure out if its psychosomatic and just in our heads (as they are trolling us with the green box) or if something has actually changed.

artanevilla

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121248636#Comment_121248636

I'd say I've drank a million pyramid bags without any bursting.

Glaceon

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121249095#Comment_121249095

I found that when they first moved to the biodegradable pyramids I did have a few burst, but it settled down after a while. I haven't personally noticed a difference in the taste so far.

Very interesting they have changed, especially considering Lyon’s made a big deal when launching pyramid teabags about how great they were.

Supposedly the shape helps the tea brew better, so if that’s true why change now? Doesn’t make sense!

I wonder if there’s been an acquisition or change of ownership etc somewhere that’s lead to this? Could make sense if say Barry’s and Lyon’s are owned by the same crowd to just stick to a standard teabag design.

Then again we’re all talking about Lyon’s tea at the moment so that could be the angle. 🫡

Irish_wolf

As someone who drinks Barry's in work and Lyon's at home (They're both fine teas but Barry's more bitter notes help mask the super hard water from the canteen boiler) that's a big mistake if ever I saw it. The pyramid bag was a key selling point for Lyon's for me. Much less likely to get that concentrated bitter extraction from the tea and a more even infusion overall. Likewise I've never had a pyramid bag burst. If this is a cost saving measure I can see myself switching over completely if that's their game. Life's too short to be drinking rubbish tea.

RetroEncabulator

Unilever sold their tea business to a fund called CVC Capital back in 2022 and is spun out as Lipton Teas and Infusions.

They're headquartered in the Netherlands now and the range includes PG tips, Lyons, Brookbond, Lipton, Pukka, T2, Taco, Red Rose Tea etc.

Lyons is packed in the UK, so whatever they're doing with PG Tips will be done with Lyons as they're not likely to have multiple production systems. I'd assume they just blend whatever the current Lyons specific blend is and run batches through the same systems.

The other possibility is that due to Brexit they've moved the Lyons production to a tea packing plant elsewhere and it's being run on teh same lines as Lipton or something.

Lyons isn't an Irish product and never really was. It originated in that Lyons Tea Shop brand years ago.

artanevilla

Tea joins the race to the bottom. "How can we do things worse?"

RetroEncabulator

Tea is one of those highly specific things, so if you mess with it people will move away.

Also, looking back at the old ads here, Lyons wasn't as dominant in the past.

A bit of clever marketing has somehow convinced us it's a great Irish traditional tea.

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121249191#Comment_121249191

Lyon's is (or was) owned by Unilever and they fairly infamously moved production to the Netherlands

There was some talk of them selling it a couple of years ago but I don't think they were moving production

RetroEncabulator

Unilever (as above) exited the tea business in 2022. They're owned by 'Lipton Teas and Infusions'

Brexit could well have accelerated any move to the Netherlands or elsewhere, as it would be potentially expensive to import asian and African teas into the UK, blend them there and then re-export them to the EU (Ireland) for a bulk and quite staple product like a mass market black tea in a tea drinking country.

The flavour of the tea is from the blend - the packing plant isn't going to have a ton of influence on that - unless they're getting the blend wrong or they've changed it.

The margins on those teas is a lot lower than some of the fancy herbal stuff.

I would also suspect there's a bit of marketing magic about the pyramid bags. It's just ground up tea in a bag. The quality of the filter paper the bag's made out of would be more relevant and the fact it has a bit of space in side to expand. Most of the time you're mashing it around with a spoon anyway, especially with those kinds of standard black teas for a normal cuppa.

mrs Doyle’s everywhere, unite.

the_amazing_raisin

The new box ⬆️

Unilever branding is gone, I do have a vague memory of them selling their whole black tea operation. I guess it's under new ownership

Haven't bought any yet, noticed Super Value have a few of the old boxes. Maybe I should stock up

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121249415#Comment_121249415

Weirdly their website doesn’t show this new branding

Regardless, I don’t like it.

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121249420#Comment_121249420

We'll see if it passes the taste test, otherwise Herr Aldi will be getting my tea money in future 😂

L1011

There's been a huge change to bags without plastic sealers. Did they manage to do that with the pyramids or is it possible they can only do it on flat bags?

I can remember the pyramid bag hype and I can also remember the round bag hype - massively wasteful shape to make compared to a square. As is a pyramid probably, another reason it could be gone.

scottygee

I don't like it, completely unnecessary change. And oh boy how much I hatted the pyramid bags, now that I see then being mentioned...

techman1

Unilever sold their tea business to a fund called CVC Capital back in 2022 and is spun out as Lipton Teas and Infusions.

Thanks reading into this Unilever sold lipton teas which includes Lyons to cvc credit partners. They are the biggest private equity company in Europe and are based in the Netherlands. However they are going to do an IPO this year and float on the stock exchange. It's interesting that a financial would choose to get involved directly in the food and beverage business. Maybe they foresee food as being a more profitable business in the future and that probably means higher prices. As for aldi and lidl brands they are essentially produced by the same production plants, so those plants will now have pricing power

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121249457#Comment_121249457

Did the pyramid bags use more material? I would have thought they were the same amount as the square bags, just closed the other way

beertons

I knew the taste was a bit off yesterday. I'll be looking for a new brand me thinks.

RetroEncabulator

I think though the bag shape hype is just that - marketing differentiation.

I could see literally no difference between the way a Barry's flat bag and a Lyon's pyramid bag brewed.

It reminds me of all the b/s about various washing liquid balls and stuff or dishwasher tablet with magic compartments.

Loose tea definitely tastes better, but it's just messy to handle. I think the difference there may be more about the cut size of the tealeaves too. The bags have very finely sliced up leaves, whereas the looser stuff is a lot larger, which probably means it retains more of the volatile flavours as the particles are less likely to dry out fully.

I'd suspect the pyramid bags are harder to fill, pack and process too. They're quite bulky and don't stack properly in boxes and it's just a big waste of packaging and that's now a major issue for companies with sustainability objectives.

L1011

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121249728#Comment_121249728

Cutting the shape would leave more leftover margin material

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121250044#Comment_121250044

Well, probably not the case with pyramid seeing as they’d just be squares folded into a pyramid

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121250044#Comment_121250044

I don't think so, I'm looking at one now and it's effectively just a tube of material which gets sealed in two different directions to make a pyramid

I agree the bag shape is just hype, it probably just brews the tea a bit faster than square bags

I reckon it was cost cutting, the pyramid bags probably require more complex packaging and slower throughput

Butson

Having to use two of these bags in a cup to get the same taste as before.

the_amazing_raisin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121249603#Comment_121249603

There's some interesting articles about the buyout, including this one from FT

https://www.ft.com/content/83529b44-f290-4668-a766-5559dfec431c

Apparently the tea business wasn't doing great so Unilever were looking to unload it to someone else

CVC are apparently hoping to improve the ESG ratings of the company and sell it on for a profit

This will likely require some degree of cost savings to free up cash to invest elsewhere in the business, so the square bags is likely part of this

I remember when reading about the acquisition I had an outside hope that someone would buy the Lyons brand and bring production back to Dublin

Wishful thinking I suspect, the margin is way too low to justify manufacturing in Ireland