The company's products were initially sold in health food stores. But the health craze of the 1970s swept the company along, and soon the company's products found their way to supermarket shelves. Revenues grew from $3 million in 1976 to $27 in 1984. Meanwhile, the heady growth brought with it an increasing need for capital. When Ceneral Mills offered to buy the company for $8.3 million in 1979, the then vice-president of Finance, Barney Feinblum, suggested that the company sell stock to its employees instead. When even this was found inadequate to fund its needs, the company decided to make a public offering of its stock in 1983. However, just four days after the offering disaster struck. A woman who consumed the equivalent of sixteen cups of one of Celestial Seasonings'teas in one sitting suffered an adverse reaction. Medical investigation indicated that the tea contained toxins. Apparently the pickers of a particular batch of herbs (from Eastern Europe) had mistakenly included herbs from a toxic plant that the company's quality control process had not detected. This adverse publicity led to a withdrawal of the public offering, and the company’s search for capital continued.In 1984, Kraft, Inc., bought Celestial Seasonings for $40 million and put it, along witth other niche players such as Lender's Bagels and Tombstone Pizza, into a separate division. Kraft invested money in advertising and product development and increased Celestial’s sales to $45 million by 1988. However, it soon became clear to Feinblum (who stayed on as Celestials' CEO after Mo Siegel departed) that Kraft was not happy with Celestial. Although Celestial was profitable under Kraft, it was simply too small to make an impression. When Kraft bought Budget Gourmet frozen dinners, it got the critical mass that it needed in the niche driven frozen food industry, and put Celestial on the selling block. Kraft sold Celestial to tea industry leader Lipton, but the sale was challenged by R.C Bigelow, a specially tea maker. Bigelow successfully argued that acquiring Celestial would give Lipton more than 80% of the herb tea market. Although the case dragged on for several months, Kraft offered to sell Celestial to a management group led by Feinblum (with the help of a venture capital firm). So, in 1988, just a short while before Kraft itself was acquired by the tobacco giant Philip Morris, Celestial got its independence. The story goes that Feinblum sent two dozen red roses to Eunice Bigelow, the Vice-President of R. Bigelow, with a note that said “thank you for standing up to the giants.”In 1996, Celestial Seasonings is a publicly owned company with more that 40 products in the two subgroups in the tea industry specially teas. (herb tea, caffeine-free tea, and flavoured tea) and traditional teas (also called 'black or 'orange pekoe"). It had 1995 revenues of $70 million and a market share of around 54% in the herb tea industry, which it helped to create. Exhibit 1 gives the company’s statement of beliefs.
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