radio - Qantas
radio - Qantas
radio - Qantas
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Talking Business with ITA BUTTROSE<br />
2<br />
Maryanne<br />
Shearer<br />
is the founder and Managing<br />
Director of T2, Australia’s<br />
leading retailer of fine tea.<br />
In the late 90s she decided<br />
to share her passion for tea<br />
with the people of Melbourne<br />
and opened up the first T2<br />
store in Fitzroy. Since then<br />
T2 has expanded to become<br />
Australia’s largest retail and<br />
wholesale tea business.<br />
www.t2tea.com<br />
IB As the founder and Managing Director of T2, Australia’s<br />
leading retailer of fine tea, Maryanne Shearer knows the value<br />
of a good cup of tea. Frustrated by the dominance of coffee<br />
and the lack of quality tea in Australia she decided to open up<br />
the first T2 store in Melbourne; that was in 1996. Today there<br />
are over 19 stores in Sydney and Melbourne. Maryanne joins<br />
Talking Business to discuss how she’s managed to make tea<br />
a contemporary of coffee in Australian households.<br />
Welcome to the show Maryanne.<br />
MS It’s lovely to be here, thank you.<br />
IB T2 is one of Australia’s largest tea retailers; you’ve been<br />
very busy since you’re opened your first store.<br />
MS We sure have, yes.<br />
IB How have you done it?<br />
MS It started out essentially as a passion for tea and as<br />
we did that we built the brand on a retail experience that<br />
didn’t exist and that was a full sensory experience; looks<br />
good, tastes good; smells good. You walk in, there’s lots<br />
of knowledge about something that most people thought<br />
was just a yellow box sitting in the pantry. T2 has taken<br />
what was a fairly old-fashioned product and turned it into<br />
something that young modern people like doing.<br />
IB You weren’t always in the tea business though were you?<br />
MS No, my background is fashion and retail.<br />
IB How did you make the leap, simply because you wanted<br />
to have more tea?<br />
MS No, it was more retail that caught my interest, being<br />
involved in retail. Most people are very conservative when<br />
it comes to setting up retail stores, they tend to be very safe<br />
in their choice of design and they take very few risks in how<br />
they set up the stores. We took as many as we possibly<br />
could. We thought, let’s really push the boundaries and<br />
create an environment - most stores are white and bright<br />
<strong>radio</strong><br />
QANTAS INFLIGHT ENTERTAINMENT | JUNE 2010
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