Who Owns Yorkshire Tea

Yorkshire Tea is owned by Bettys & Taylors Group Ltd, a private family company based in Harrogate, North Yorkshire. The tea is blended by its tea and coffee business, Taylors of Harrogate, and the shares are held by descendants of Frederick Belmont, the Swiss baker who opened the first Bettys tea room in 1919. It has never been sold to a multinational. In the year to October 2025 the group turned over £325.7 million.

The short answer

If you want the story of how a Swiss confectioner and a Yorkshire tea merchant ended up as one business, our feature on Yorkshire Tea and Bettys of Harrogate tells it. This guide sticks to the ownership: who holds the shares, what the filed accounts show and how that compares with the other big British tea brands.

Who owns Bettys & Taylors?

Bettys & Taylors Group Ltd is a private limited company registered at Companies House. It was incorporated on 30 October 1951 as Prospect Foods Limited and took its current name in 1993. Its registered office is the Bettys café building on Parliament Street in Harrogate.

The group’s most recent confirmation statement, filed in April 2026, lists 13 shareholdings held by individuals and trustees, including several members of the Wild family. For a decade the only person with significant control on the register was Jonathan Wild, a former chairman, who held more than 25% but not more than 50% of the shares. That entry ended on 20 March 2026. The company now states that no one person or company controls it, which means no single shareholder holds more than a quarter.

The company describes itself plainly. Its 2025 strategic report says the business is guided by its “Family Shareholders” and that “we’re committed to remaining an independent family business”. The Yorkshire Tea website calls it a third-generation family business that is “still family-owned”. An older company history describes the owners as third-generation descendants of Frederick Belmont.

The group has also been buying back shares. Filings show the company purchased and cancelled its own shares each autumn from 2023 to 2025, cutting the issued capital to 39,831 ordinary shares. The 2025 accounts explain that this was the third and final tranche of an agreed purchase from one shareholder, at a cash cost of £2.6 million. Buying out a family member this way keeps the shares inside the business rather than letting them pass to an outsider.

Who runs it?

Day-to-day control sits with a board rather than one owner. Clare Morrow, a director since January 2014, signed the 2025 directors’ report and is named as chair. The officer list shows several board changes in 2026, with new directors appointed in April and September. Like many family firms, Bettys & Taylors keeps family shareholders and professional managers side by side on its board.

How Bettys & Taylors is structured

The trading company underneath is Bettys & Taylors of Harrogate Ltd (company no. 00543821), registered in 1955 as Betty’s Cafes (Bradford) Limited. The Companies House register shows that the group owns 75% or more of it. According to the 2025 accounts the group consists of:

• Taylors of Harrogate, the tea and coffee merchant that makes Yorkshire Tea, Taylors coffee and a range of speciality teas.
• Five Bettys Café Tea Rooms, all in Yorkshire: Harrogate, York, Ilkley, Northallerton and RHS Harlow Carr.
• Bettys by Post, the online shop for cakes, chocolates and tea.
• A craft bakery that supplies the tea rooms and shops.
• Bettys Cookery School, opened in 2001 next to the bakery.

From Taylors of 1886 to Yorkshire Tea in 1977

Two family firms sit behind the brand. Charles Edward Taylor and his brother founded the tea and coffee merchant C.E. Taylor & Co. in 1886, and it later ran kiosk coffee houses in Harrogate and Ilkley. Frederick Belmont opened the first Bettys Café Tea Rooms in Harrogate in 1919. In 1962 Bettys bought Taylors, creating the business that exists today.

Yorkshire Tea came 15 years later. According to the brand’s history, it launched in 1977 as “a Yorkshire blend for Yorkshire people”, with different blends for areas of Yorkshire with hard or soft water. It grew into a single national blend in the familiar red and orange pack, though a separate blend for hard water areas is still sold. The brand gained a Royal Warrant from the then Prince of Wales in 2009, and by 2019 it had become the best-selling tea in Britain, according to sales data reported at the time.

How big is the business?

Because it is a large private company, Bettys & Taylors must file full group accounts at Companies House each year. The 2025 accounts, for the year to 31 October 2025, show:

• Turnover up 2.0% to £325.7 million, from £319.2 million a year earlier.
• Operating profit down from £29.2 million to £27.7 million, as coffee prices hit records.
• Profit after tax up 2.5% to £21.3 million.
• UK sales of £304.4 million, US sales of £12.3 million and £9.0 million from the rest of the world.
• Net assets of £167.7 million and £27.4 million in cash at the year end.
• 1,635 employees, with 594 on average in catering and retail and 582 in manufacturing.

The group first passed £300 million in sales in 2024, when turnover rose 8% to £319.2 million. Industry coverage at the time put the jump down to a 15% rise in volume after production upgrades. Sales have grown by about 40% since 2020, although operating profit sat between £10 million and £12 million from 2021 to 2023 before more than doubling in 2024.

Yorkshire Tea is the engine. The 2025 report says the brand’s share of the UK black tea market by value rose 1.6 points to a record 41.6%, even as the market for standard black tea bags shrank by 4% in value. Taylors also leads in coffee bags, with what the company says is 81.6% of the UK market. International sales fell £3.9 million, mainly in the US, after changes to terms with a key customer and uncertainty over import tariffs. A canned Yorkshire Tea Iced, made from Yorkshire Gold, was trialled in 2025 with a full launch planned for 2026.

One unusual detail: employees share in the group’s profits through a scheme that pays out quarterly in proportion to each person’s earnings. The accounts say it has run continuously for more than 40 years.

What is in a cup of Yorkshire Tea?

Yorkshire Tea is a black tea blend built to be drunk strong with milk. The company does not publish a fixed recipe, but the brand blends teas from India, Sri Lanka and Kenya. Our guides to Assam tea and Ceylon tea explain what those two origins bring to a breakfast blend. A mug has caffeine in the same range as other strong black tea bags, which our caffeine comparison sets out.

Whether you add the milk before or after is the subject of a long British argument, which we settle as far as anyone can in milk first or tea first. Yorkshire Tea is also the house tea in many British tea rooms, where you might meet it in an afternoon tea or a cream tea.

How Yorkshire Tea’s ownership compares

Yorkshire Tea is now the only one of Britain’s big everyday tea brands still owned by a family. The rest belong to large groups, as our guide to who owns the big tea brands explains:

That independence is a choice the owners repeat often. The company has long declined to open Bettys tea rooms outside Yorkshire, and its strategy states that it wants to stay an independent family business. With no single controlling shareholder since March 2026 and no sign of a sale, Yorkshire Tea looks set to stay in Harrogate hands.

Quick answers

Who owns Yorkshire Tea?

Bettys & Taylors Group Ltd, a private family company in Harrogate. Taylors of Harrogate, part of the group, blends and packs the tea.

Is Yorkshire Tea owned by Unilever or Tata?

No. Unilever sold PG Tips and Lipton in 2022, and Tata owns Tetley. Yorkshire Tea has always belonged to the Bettys & Taylors family business.

Is Yorkshire Tea a public company?

No. Bettys & Taylors Group is a private limited company. Its shares are not traded on a stock market, so you cannot buy them.

Is Yorkshire Tea still family-owned?

Yes. The company describes itself as an independent family business, and its shares are held by family members and trusts. No single shareholder has more than 25% of the shares.

Is Yorkshire Tea actually made in Yorkshire?

It is blended and packed by Taylors of Harrogate in Yorkshire. The tea itself is grown in Africa and Asia, as with every British black tea brand.

How much is Bettys & Taylors worth?

There is no market price because the shares are not traded. Its net assets were £167.7 million at October 2025, on sales of £325.7 million and a profit after tax of £21.3 million.

However you take your brew, keep the bags in an airtight tin away from light and strong smells. Our tea storage guide explains why.

Sources

• Companies House. Bettys & Taylors Group Ltd, company 00500829: overview and filed accounts to 31 October 2025.
• Companies House. Bettys & Taylors Group Ltd: persons with significant control.
• Companies House. Bettys & Taylors Group Ltd: filing history, including the confirmation statement of 4 April 2026 and share buybacks.
• Companies House. Bettys & Taylors Group Ltd: officers.
• Companies House. Bettys & Taylors of Harrogate Ltd, company 00543821.
• Companies House. Bettys & Taylors of Harrogate Ltd: persons with significant control.
• Yorkshire Tea. Who we are.
• The MBS Group. Bettys & Taylors breaks £300m in sales for the first time. 28 May 2025.
• FundingUniverse. Bettys & Taylors of Harrogate Ltd. company history.
• Wikipedia. Bettys and Taylors of Harrogate.
• Wikipedia. Yorkshire Tea.