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Milo’s Tea Company CEO Tricia Wallwork took a one-facility, 40-employee firm and turned it into the producer of the top-selling refrigerated tea brand in the United States. Forbes recently profiled Wallwork, a third-generation CEO of the seven-decade-old sweet tea business, telling the story of her meteoric rise and the company’s transformation.

• “Milo’s really is this great American growth story,” Wallwork, who has been CEO since 2012 (and is now an NAM board member), told Forbes. “Our hockey stick is real, and I know it because I lived it.”

Big achievements: Today, Milo’s has 1,000 employees working around the clock at three plants, which together produce about 1,800 bottles per minute.

• The company’s estimated revenue for 2025 is $500 million. Its case volume has grown by a factor of 10 under Wallwork’s leadership, and it has maintained a compound annual growth rate of more than 20%.
• “Milo’s became the top-selling refrigerated tea brand in 2025, according to Nielsen IQ, with its gallon jug of signature sweet tea becoming the No. 1 selling ready-to-drink tea across American retailers.”

Big goals: “Milo’s is on track to hit $1 billion in retail sales by the end of this year—a year ahead of when it was initially projected.”

Her history: Wallwork studied philosophy and Spanish in college before becoming a lawyer, only joining the family-owned firm in 2004 at age 29. Soon she realized she had found her calling and “asked the rest of her family’s shareholders if she could take over as CEO.”

• Wallwork then began a campaign to transform the company and “expanded distribution at Walmart, landed new deals at major retailers, such as Publix, Kroger [and] Dollar General, and kept hitting sales milestones.”
• “Sell, sell, sell. I was like, ‘How can I get in front of the customer?’” Wallwork said of her approach.

Looking ahead: Wallwork stressed the importance of planning for the long term.

• “‘We think that the challenges ahead are only solvable in generations, not in three- to five-year increments or quarterly earnings reports,’ she says, pointing to the business being zero-waste certified and donating 1% of all profits to local education and environmental charities. ‘It’s about purpose, and we feel we have a deep purpose to build this business so we can impact more individuals.’”