Case Study 5.1 Teepack Spezialmaschinen GmbH: organizing a global survey of customer satisfaction Teepack (www.teepack.com) is a specialized man- the tea market with the double-chamber tea bag. It ufacturer of tea bag machines for the world's best- meant that production volumes could be increased known brands of tea and herbs and fruit teas, such dramatically. Today, the latest generation of these as Lipton, Pickwick, Twinings and Lyons/Tetley. machines is capable of production speeds of Teepack is a sister company of Teekanne, the almost 420 tea bags per minute, i.e. some 4.5 bil- leading tea, herb and fruit tea packing company in lion a year. Germany, which owns the Teefix, Pompadour and The tea bag produced by Teepack machines has Teekanne brands. The Teekanne Group has produc- the highest sales of any double-chamber tea bag in tion and sales subsidiaries in several countries. There the world. Important benefits are that it has consid are about 1,200 employees in the group with a turn- erably larger space between the two bag chambers over of E269 million (2017). In Teepack there are 200 and offers maximum tea bag stability and durability employees, who generate a turnover of E24 million without adding glue or heat-sealing. (2017). Teepack is the only manufacturer of tea bag The popularity of this practical tea bag has con. machines that also has an ownership relation to a tinued to grow. For example, in Germany, 80 per major tea bag brand manufacturer (Teekanne). cent of tea sales are in double-chamber tea bags; in The invention of the automatic tea bag-pack- the UK, the figure is about 90 per cent and in Europe. aging machine by Teepack in 1949 revolutionized if you omit the UK, the figure is close to 90 per cent Even in the former UK colony, Austra lia, the double-chamber tea bag has almost convinced consumers. 'Down CEKAN under', sales of UK tea bags and the double-chamber tea bag are more of less equal. The tea bag machine mar ket is expected to grow at a CAGR of 5 per cent until 2025. In the tea bag packaging industry the demand for varieties of black herbal, green and fru getting stronger and the competition is quite fierce as well. not only preserves and protects the product within the tea bag but also communicates the brand's values Headquarters of Teekanne GmbH & Co. KG, Dusseldorf, Germany utes to the sales process and contributes to the Source: DPA Picture Alliance/Alamy Stock Photo. Sustainability and the tendency to Teepack had sold more than 100 tea bag-packaging machines to the US market. Technical innovation resulted in Teepack engi- neers developing a new, even more efficient machine - the 'Perfecta'. Since 1990, more than 300 Perfecta machines have been sold worldwide. In 2017, Teepack had a market share of about 65 per cent of the global double-chamber tea bag machine market. Their product range includes more The traditional double-chamber tea bag ver- than 200 machines. sus the new pyramid tea bag format Source: Sspopov/Shutterstock and Ktv144/Shutterstock. Questions minimize the use of packaging materials is a major Please visit www.teepack.com before you answer concern in the tea bag packaging industry. the following questions: New formats of tea bags are also coming up. The 1. How would you forecast worldwide demand for pyramid tea bag' format is the latest development tea bag machines? when it comes to convenient tea making, especially in connection with speciality tea. For example, in 2. How can Teepack and Teekanne use their relation- Australia the pyramid tea bag is moving into the ship to each other with regard to collecting rele- mainstream with the larger brands, including Lipton vant market research data for both companies? and Twinings. Fuso International, a leading Japanese 3. Argue the case for the market analysis method tea bag machine manufacturer is a specialist in pyra- you would choose if you had to evaluate the com- mid tea bag manufacturing, which is predominantly petitiveness of Teepack Spezialmaschinen on the used in Asia-Pacific region. global tea bag-packaging machine market. Since 1950, Teepack GmbH has been the number 4. In order to achieve better customer feedback, one producer of double-chamber tea bag-packaging the top management of Teepack is interested machines in the world and has sold more than in learning how to measure customer satisfac 2,200 of its 'Constanta' machine. Thanks to Tee- tion. Propose a questionnaire design that con- pack's packaging machines, Lipton is the leader tains some of the themes it would be relevant to of the international tea market. Already by 1957, include in the questionnaire. Sources: based on www.teepack.com and other public sources