捍卫自主权：被可口可乐收购之后

    大约10年前，人们还只能在小杂货店和消费合作社中看到Honest Tea，就是那种贩卖羽衣甘蓝烤脆片和散装营养酵母的地方。

    如今，Honest Tea已携手一家饮料业巨头取得了长足发展。2008年，财富100强公司可口可乐（Coca-Cola）以约4,300万美元首次收购Honest Tea公司40%的股份，三年后又行权收购了剩余的60%股份（收购金额未予披露）。不过，有报道称，Honest Tea首席执行官希斯•戈曼已回购相当一部分他的个人股份。

    不出所料，Honest Tea的一些老主顾并不乐意看到这家有机茶公司加入可口可乐。但Honest Tea的共同创始人、目前仍在马里兰州贝塞斯达总部负责公司运营的戈曼说，这是一个有益但也需要努力的过程。他向《财富》杂志（Fortune）讲述了即便是在被全球最大的饮料公司收购后，一家小型绿色公司保持企业之魂的努力。

    被收购后，Honest Tea获得了可口可乐广大的分销网络。戈曼说，2008年约有1.5万家商店出售Honest Tea，如今已超过了10万家。

    可口可乐对广告宣传也很在行，帮助Honest Tea从游击营销（比如，在商店派发免费样品或用几箱茶换取杂志广告位等）升级到了大型广告牌和电视广告营销。今年夏天，Honest Tea播出了第一条电视广告，一些茶叶和一只柠檬想挤进一瓶Honest Tea，结果没成功，大概是因为它们都不是有机产品。

    Honest Tea出售的所有东西都是有机的，而且戈曼声称，公司努力做到透明，而不像母公司那样。“我们有印度茶园的视频、短片和照片，我自己也去过那里，”戈曼说。“相比之下，不是要贬低可口可乐，但它们有保密配方。大多数人都不知道可乐的成份来自何处，他们就是要这样。”

    这种文化反差让一些Honest Tea的消费者感到不太适应。他们告诉戈曼称，虽然他们喜欢Honest Tea，但没法认同可口可乐。戈曼表示，他将这一合作视为从内部改变可口可乐的一种方式。“我喜欢小公司，有10年的时间，我们一直都是一家独立的小公司。”但戈曼对Honest Tea设定了远大的目标：“现在我们在讨论改变发展中世界的农业格局。一旦你的规模达到了可以真正产生影响的时候，就可以做到这一点。”

    而且，Honest Tea似乎也在不动声色地改变着母公司。2007年（在与可口可乐达成合作前的一年）， Honest Tea采购了79万磅的有机配料。去年，它采购超过400万磅，为全球可持续农业提供更多支持。在Honest Tea的要求下，可口可乐已将几个灌装厂进行了有机产品生产认证。

    但与任何合作关系一样，双方之间也存在一些冲突。2010年，可口可乐要求Honest Tea将有些产品标注的“不含高果糖玉米糖浆”的文字移除。可口可乐认为，这可能对旗下其他确实含有这种成分的产品产生不利影响，但却遭到Honest Tea严辞拒绝。最终，这项声明得以保留，Honest Tea有机饮品也继续得到极度不喜果糖人群的追捧。

    近期，这两家公司又在加州37号提案（Proposition 37）上的立场产生了分歧。如果今年11月该提案获得通过，将来加州所有食品都要列明含有的转基因成份。可口可乐已斥资数百万美元来游说和抵制这一提案。Honest Tea并未参与其中，因为它不使用任何转基因成分。但它还是收到了一些消费者的批评，戈曼表示：“Honest Tea现在勉强能够盈利。我们不会往任何政治性事件上大笔投钱。”

    About 10 years ago, you could only find Honest Tea in small grocery stores and co-ops – the kind of joints that also hawk kale chips and bulk-bin nutritional yeast.

    Since then, the company has come far, having partnered with a beverage industry heavy-hitter. In 2008, Fortune 100 company Coca-Cola (KO) first paired up with Honest Tea by purchasing a 40% stake for about $43 million. Three years later, Coke exercised its right to purchase the remaining 60% of the company for an undisclosed amount, although Honest Tea CEO Seth Goldman reportedly bought back a significant amount of his personal equity.

    Unsurprisingly, some of the former Honest Tea patrons didn't take kindly to Honest Tea's entry into Big Beverage. But it has been a beneficial, if not always easy, process, says Goldman, who co-founded the company and still runs it out of its Bethesda, Maryland headquarters. He spoke toFortune about how a small green business can keep its soul even after being bought by the largest beverage company in the world.

    Since being acquired, Honest Tea has gained access to Coke's giant reach. About 15,000 stores stocked Honest Tea in 2008, Goldman says, and now you can find the product in over 100,000 places.

    Coke also knows its way around an ad campaign, and it helped Honest Tea scale from guerilla marketing tactics -- like giving away free samples at stores or trading cases of tea for a magazine spot -- to sporting big billboards and television ads. Its first TV commercial, released this summer, features animated tealeaves and a lemon trying to get into a bottle of Honest Tea. They fail though, presumably because they aren't organic.

    Everything Honest Tea sells is organic, Goldman says, and the company tries to be transparent, rather unlike its parent. "We have videos and footage and pictures of tea gardens in India that I visited," Goldman says. "By contrast, and not to put down Coca-Cola, but they have a secret formula. Most people don't know where the ingredients come from, and that's by design."

    That cultural gap has generated some cognitive dissonance among Honest Tea's customers. Consumers told Goldman that while they liked Honest Tea, they couldn't get behind Coke. Goldman argues that he's looking at the partnership as a way to change Coke from within. "Look, I love small companies and for 10 years we were a small independent company." But Goldman has big goals for Honest Tea: "We're talking about changing the landscape of agriculture in the developing world. That happens when you get to a scale where you can really make an impact."

    And quietly, Honest Tea seems to be chipping away at its parent company. In 2007, before working with Coke, Honest Tea purchased 790,000 pounds of organic ingredients. Last year, it bought over 4 million pounds, supporting more sustainable farming worldwide. Also, because of Honest Tea's demands, Coke has gotten several of its bottling plants certified organic.

    But like any relationship, this one has hit its roadblocks. In 2010, Coke asked Honest Tea to remove the text on some of its products that said there was no high fructose corn syrup inside. Coke thought it might reflect poorly on its other products, which do contain the ingredient. Honest Tea put its foot down though, and the claim stayed, keeping its organic drinks attractive to the fructo-phobic market.

    More recently, the two companies have diverged on their stances towards Proposition 37, which, if passed this November, would require all food products in the state of California to list any genetically engineered ingredients. Coke has spent millions to campaign against the proposition. Honest Tea doesn't really have a dog in this fight, since it doesn't use GMOs. But it still received flak from customers despite the fact that, says Goldman, "Honest Tea is barely at profitability. We're not pouring any money into any political anything."