Traditionally the tea market has worked through auctions, brokers, or traders, thus ensuring an open pricing structure. However, unlike coffee, tea is a product that is processed where it is harvested. Coffee is imported in green bean form and "roasted” by the producer who eventually packs the coffee. The coffee producers in this instance have a significant input into the quality of the final product, depending on how the coffee was roasted and their levels of skill in roasting. Tea is processed at source, and it is the skills of the producing estates in processing the tea which affect the final quality of the product. The lack of contact between the tea packers and producer estates meant that tea companies were unable to influence the quality of the tea available on the market.

In the mid 80's, through the vision of our buying and blending director, Phil Mumby, we realized that we were never going to influence the quality of our final product if we did not have contact with estates in the growing countries. This realization was the birth of the Premier Brands Quality Auditing Program (QAP). Premier established direct contact with suppliers in the main countries of origin and had bespoke qualities of tea manufactured for us by the end of the eighties. In 1992, we realized that we had to formalize our relationship with our suppliers through an auditing process. We also realized that we had a moral obligation to monitor employee welfare and, from the very beginning, the QAP included certain standards on such things as schooling and health care that must be present for a producing estate to achieve a Premier Brands QAP certification. At this time, 150 estates have achieved certification under the Quality Auditing Program.

In March 1997, our buying policy was endorsed by the Fairtrade Foundation, an organization involved with ethical trading and whose board members are from the major UK non-governmental organizations. In December 1997, the Ethical Trading Initiative (ETI) was formed in the UK, and Premier Brands was the only food manufacturer to be a founding member. Within the ETI, major companies, aid agencies, trade unions, and government representatives have come together to set sourcing standards in developing countries.