Worlée’s Sebastian Reifke.
When it comes to trading raw materials in blends of herbal and fruit teas, Hamburg, Germany is the leader. It is from Hamburg that Worlée NaturProdukte GmbH (Worlée), with 160 years of history, trades an international product range of select ingredients.
Utilizing all the finest raw materials, Worlée is a leading food production and processing specialist. Through its global procurement strategy and intensive cooperation with manufacturers throughout the world, Worlée provides a unique variety of dried products sources from both convention organic agriculture.
With a large range of conventional, organic, fair trade, and sustainable products for the food and tea industry, Worlée is always one step ahead. Its own production and processing plants utilize state-of-the-art technology make Worlée a leading player in the fruit and herbal tea businesses.
Interview: Sebastian Reifke, managing director Worlée NaturProdukte
Sebastian Reifke is Worlée’s managing director and head of the tea department since 2000 and with 30+ years’ experience dealing with ingredients for herbal and fruit teas.
STiR coffee and tea magazine: How is the quality of the raw materials guaranteed at Worlée, and what challenges to face in this regard?
Reifke: The food-compliant quality of our raw materials is certainly the most decisive component. Our tested and audited network of long-standing partners in the global procurement markets ensures products, quantities, and the coordinated quality requirements. However, changes in legislation, crises, and climate change are often intensive and complex requirements that need to be managed and solved as a team.
STiR: How does Worlée guarantee its access to raw materials and where do they come from?
Reifke: Through closely coordinated demand planning between the procurement, sales, and product management teams. Since this year, we operate digitally also, facilitated by our new internal communication platform INSIGHT. We source basically worldwide. However, if you look at the number of tea-like raw materials for herbal and fruit teas, the origins of eastern/southeastern Europe, North Africa, and Asia stand out.
STiR: Has the demand for tea increased, remained steady or decreased in recent years?
Reifke: Benchmarks have already been set by trends and changing consumer behavior, such as the topics of organic cultivation and sustainability. Furthermore, new developments such as cold infusions, developed at Worlée because of successful teamwork with our customers, r&d, and experts in the beverages sector, have now been firmly implemented.
STiR: Which raw materials are currently the most popular ones?
Reifke: We must distinguish between raw material components and tea concepts. If we look at individual raw materials then rosehip, echinacea, turmeric, and ginger are currently in great demand. If we look at tea concepts, these would be functional blends, such as additives with vitamins and minerals then herbal teas and sustainable blends. Looking at the organic sector, spice tea blends such as ginger-lemon and chai are currently very popular. As in the conventional sector, turmeric is very much in vogue. South African rooibos tea has come back into focus due to price developments.
STiR: Have you noticed any changes in sales or demand for different or certain types of tea during the pandemic?
Reifke: The pandemic has had a severe impact on our customers especially those whose core business is supplying hotels, pubs, and restaurants. Sales have slumped significantly, which of course also impacts on our business. The same applies in the tea trade – a catastrophe that continues.
STiR: What have been the biggest changes in the tea market since you have been working at Worlée?
Reifke: It will be more than a challenge to procure certain products, such as chamomile, in conformity with the EU regulations, due to constant changes in food legislation regarding decreasing maximum quantities in the contaminants regulations within the RHmVo. A scenario in which individual raw materials disappear from the market is unfortunately quite conceivable.
STiR: What differentiates Worlée from other raw material suppliers?
Reifke: Reliability, adherence to delivery dates, innovations, a comprehensive service package covered by quality department, logistics services, r&d, and a high level of competence in the areas of procurement, sales, and product management. And of course, the distinctive customer friendliness – simply Hanseatic!