Milo’s Tea: From a Single Menu Item to a Household Name

What started as a menu item at a single burger restaurant has become a summer staple and a household name across the U.S.: Milo’s Tea.

What’s going on: “Today we’re a tea and lemonade company, but it didn’t start that way,” Milo’s Tea Company Chair and CEO Tricia Wallwork, a member of the NAM Board of Directors, told the “Today” show last week. “There actually was a guy named Milo, and he was my granddad.”

After serving in World War II, Milo Carlton—who had “always had a passion for food” and had been a cook in the army—opened a burger restaurant in Birmingham, Alabama.
His biggest hit? The eatery’s sweet tea. In 1946, Carlton and his family decided to start the beverage business.
In 2022, the firm became the top-selling refrigerated tea brand in the U.S. It’s also the fastest-growing refrigerated lemonade brand.

A manufacturing powerhouse: In April, the beverage maker opened its fourth manufacturing site, a 10,000-square-foot brewing and packaging facility in Spartanburg County, South Carolina.

A major success story: Today Milo’s Tea is available for sale in all 50 states at more than 55,000 retail locations—but it remains family-owned. (It’s also a certified women-owned business.)

When Wallwork took the helm in 2012, “we had [maybe] 40 people,” she said. Now, “we’re going to end this year with over 1,000.”

Making Milo proud: Still, despite its explosive success, the company—which will release a zero-sugar lemonade this year—is faithful to its roots.

“It was my grandfather’s recipe, and it’s still the same formula we use today,” Wallwork told “Today’s” Kathy Park.
“I think my grandparents would be so proud of the wonderful jobs we’ve been able to create and the many lives that we’ve been able to touch through our business and through our flavors and our brands.”