The Recognition
Bigelow Tea has received the 2026 Aquarion Environmental Champion Award, the Connecticut-based tea maker's second such honor from Aquarion Water Company — the first came in 2018 — for sustaining zero-waste-to-landfill manufacturing operations and sourcing Green-e® certified renewable energy.
The award highlights a sustainability posture Bigelow has maintained operationally since 2012, when the company first achieved zero-waste-to-landfill status across its facilities. That 14-year track record places Bigelow among a relatively small cohort of specialty food and beverage manufacturers to have held such certification continuously over more than a decade.
Why It Matters
For the broader food and beverage industry, the recognition arrives as sustainability credentials become an increasingly material factor in retailer shelf decisions and foodservice procurement. Grocery buyers and foodservice distributors have progressively required suppliers to document environmental performance, making third-party recognitions like the Aquarion award a useful differentiator in competitive category reviews.
Green-e® certification, administered by the Center for Resource Solutions, independently verifies that a company's renewable energy claims meet North American standard — a layer of third-party assurance that carries weight with both retail buyers and institutional foodservice operators scrutinising supplier ESG disclosures. For a family-owned specialty brand competing against larger beverage conglomerates, certified sustainability infrastructure can serve as both a cost-management tool and a brand equity asset.
Competitive Landscape
Bigelow occupies a distinctive position in the U.S. packaged tea market, sitting between mass-market commodity players and premium loose-leaf specialists. The company's investment in renewable energy and waste diversion aligns with moves seen across the wider hot-beverage segment, where peers have pursued similar certifications in response to tightening retailer sustainability scorecards and growing institutional-buyer requirements in the foodservice channel.
Repeat recognition from the same environmental body — spanning eight years — also signals that Bigelow's zero-waste operations are embedded in ongoing capital and process decisions rather than a one-time compliance push. For food and beverage operators evaluating supply-chain partners, that continuity matters as much as the award itself.
The Aquarion Environmental Champion Award is presented by Aquarion Water Company, a regional utility serving Connecticut and neighboring states, to businesses demonstrating meaningful environmental stewardship. For coverage of sustainability and certification trends shaping the broader beverage sector, see F&B Industry News coverage of consumer trends and our ongoing reporting on supply-chain compliance in food manufacturing.
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
