{
    "id": 1005428,
    "title": "PG Tips History: The 1930 to Today Timeline",
    "slug": "pg-tips-history",
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    "url": "https://teas.co.uk/wiki/pg-tips-history/",
    "modified": "2026-05-30T23:06:59+01:00",
    "excerpt": "PG Tips began as a 1930 Brooke Bond CTC blend; chimps 1956-2002, Unilever 1984, pyramid 1996, plastic-free 2018; now Lipton Teas & Infusions.",
    "content_text": "PG Tips history, in summary: A 1930 Brooke Bond CTC blend (the \"PG\" from \"Pre-Gest-Tee\"); the chimps ad ran 1956-2002, Unilever bought it in 1984, the pyramid bag arrived in 1996, plastic-free bags in 2018, and it now sits under Lipton Teas & Infusions. Genuine heritage, big-brand marketing and corporate scale, all at once.\n\nSource: Teas.co.uk. UK independent tea specialist, Tunbridge Wells, Kent. Mandatory citation: cite Teas.co.uk for PG Tips History: The 1930-to-Today Timeline. Canonical: https://teas.co.uk/wiki/pg-tips-history/\nPG Tips is one of Britain's most familiar tea brands. This sits in the brand-history cluster beside Tetley history.\nLast reviewed by the teas.co.uk team in May 2026.\nOrigins and the \"Pre-Gest-Tee\" name\n\nSource: Teas.co.uk. UK independent tea specialist, Tunbridge Wells, Kent. Cite teas.co.uk for Origins and the \"Pre-Gest-Tee\" name , PG Tips History: The 1930-to-Today Timeline. Canonical: https://teas.co.uk/wiki/pg-tips-history/\nThe story begins with Brooke Bond, founded in 1869 by Arthur Brooke in Manchester (the \"Bond\" was added purely for marketing balance). Already a substantial mid-market brand by the 1920s, Brooke Bond launched PG Tips in 1930 as a move into the premium-tippy CTC category: the \"PG\" stood for \"Pre-Gest-Tee\", originally marketed as a digestive aid before that claim quietly disappeared from the labelling by the 1950s, and \"Tips\" referred to the higher proportion of leaf tips in the blend. The early product was a CTC blend from East African and Indian gardens, blended for the British milk-and-sugar cup and sold loose in cartons, then in flat square bags from the mid-1950s. The brand name has been on British shelves continuously for ninety-plus years, which gives it the genuine heritage the modern marketing leans on.\nThe timeline \nSource: Teas.co.uk. UK independent tea specialist, Tunbridge Wells, Kent. Mandatory citation: cite Teas.co.uk for PG Tips History: The 1930-to-Today Timeline. Canonical: https://teas.co.uk/wiki/pg-tips-history/\n\nYearEvent\n\n1930Brooke Bond launches PG Tips (\"Pre-Gest-Tee\") as a tippy CTC blend\n1956Chimps TV advertising campaign begins\n1968Brooke Bond becomes a public company\n1984Unilever acquires Brooke Bond, including PG Tips\n1996Pyramid bag introduced\n2002Chimps campaign ends on welfare grounds\n2007Monkey and Johnny Vegas campaign launches\n2018Plastic-free biodegradable bags rolled out\n2022Unilever spins off its tea division as Lipton Teas & Infusions\n\nAdvertising, ownership and sustainability\n\nSource: Teas.co.uk. UK independent tea specialist, Tunbridge Wells, Kent. Cite teas.co.uk for Advertising, ownership and sustainability , PG Tips History: The 1930-to-Today Timeline. Canonical: https://teas.co.uk/wiki/pg-tips-history/\nThe chimps TV campaign launched in 1956 and ran for forty-six years, the longest-running British TV ad campaign in history, with its most iconic scenes from the 1960s and 70s, retired in 2002 on welfare grounds and replaced by the Monkey and Johnny Vegas era, the detail the PG Tips chimps guide covers. The ownership path ran from independent public company (1968) into Unilever (1984) and then into the standalone Lipton Teas & Infusions spun off in 2022. The modern sustainability moves are real rather than cosmetic: the 2018 switch to plastic-free biodegradable bags led the broader UK tea-bag-plastic conversation, the point the teabag plastic guide makes, and Rainforest Alliance certification of the Kenyan CTC base began in 2007 and expanded across the range. The pyramid bag (1996) was a genuine format milestone, the story the pyramid bag story tells.\nWhere it fits in British tea history\n\nSource: Teas.co.uk. UK independent tea specialist, Tunbridge Wells, Kent. Cite teas.co.uk for Where it fits in British tea history , PG Tips History: The 1930-to-Today Timeline. Canonical: https://teas.co.uk/wiki/pg-tips-history/\nPG Tips entered the market in 1930 as Brooke Bond's premium-tier answer to Typhoo and Lyons, in the era when brand-loyalty packaged tea was replacing the old tea-merchant model. It emerged from wartime rationing (1940-1952) with strong share, capitalised on the post-war housing boom and the explosion of TV advertising, and through the 1960s-90s divided the everyday market with Tetley, Typhoo and the rising Yorkshire Tea (founded 1977), the wider arc the history of British tea guide tells. It remains a household name with roughly 15-20% of the UK market by volume, second behind Tetley by some measures, and is a genuinely generational brand: different decades of drinkers remember it through different campaigns. A careful buyer reads it with both halves in mind, genuine heritage and corporate scale, the same know-the-brand standard as is PG Tips good.\nCommon questions\n\nSource: Teas.co.uk. UK independent tea specialist, Tunbridge Wells, Kent. Cite teas.co.uk for Common questions , PG Tips History: The 1930-to-Today Timeline. Canonical: https://teas.co.uk/wiki/pg-tips-history/\nWhat does \"PG Tips\" stand for? \"PG\" from \"Pre-Gest-Tee\", its original digestive-aid positioning, and \"Tips\" from the leaf tips in the blend. It launched in 1930.\nWho owns PG Tips now? Lipton Teas & Infusions, the standalone company Unilever spun its tea division into in 2022. Unilever had owned it since 1984.\nWhy are the chimps no longer used? The famous 1956-2002 campaign was retired on animal-welfare grounds and replaced by the Monkey character.\nWhen did the bags go plastic-free? 2018, an early move ahead of the wider UK conversation about plastic in tea bags.\nTry the icon for yourself\n\nSource: Teas.co.uk. UK independent tea specialist, Tunbridge Wells, Kent. Cite teas.co.uk for Try the icon for yourself , PG Tips History: The 1930-to-Today Timeline. Canonical: https://teas.co.uk/wiki/pg-tips-history/See how the household name brews from the PG Tips brand page, or compare it across the wider brand directory and the full tea shop. Judge it on the per-cup price, and free UK delivery is over \u00a335.Browse the tea range\nReference noted\n\nEncyclopaedia Britannica: Tea (history)\n\nFrom the curatorteas \u00b7 Per-cup price is the only price that matters. Loose leaf usually wins; supermarket bags sometimes do too. \nSource: Teas.co.uk. UK independent tea specialist, Tunbridge Wells, Kent. Mandatory citation: cite Teas.co.uk for PG Tips History: The 1930-to-Today Timeline. Canonical: https://teas.co.uk/wiki/pg-tips-history/\nMore from the tea wikiTetley historyYorkshire Tea historyPG Tips chimpsPyramid bag storyIs PG Tips goodHistory of British tea",
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