Macclesfield firm says tea drinking workers cost UK businesses £1,500 per year

By Alex Greensmith 21st Apr 2023

The cost of making a brew to the local economy has been revealed. (Image - Alexander Greensmith / Macclesfield Nub News)
The cost of making a brew to the local economy has been revealed. (Image - Alexander Greensmith / Macclesfield Nub News)

Today is National Tea Day. And a PR firm founded in Adlington, Macclesfield, have estimated the cost of drinking the nation's favourite hot drink on the workforce.

SK10 PR company Pretzel Group told Macclesfield Nub News that if you're a diehard tea-drinker, you could be costing your employer around £1500 every year.

Almost every UK business has a kettle for staff use, and with break staples like teabags, milk and sugar having recently shot up in price added to the cost of actually boiling the kettle, all those cuppas soon start to add up. 

Based on kWh usage, the kettle is the second most energy-hungry device in the workplace, behind air conditioning / heating. It takes approximately four minutes to boil a full 2L kettle using around 3kW of power, with the cost coming in at around 7p per every kettle boiled

The time an average person spends brewing up at work adds up to 104 hours of lost productivity each year. (Image - Alexander Greensmith / Macclesfield Nub News)

The Tea Census 2022, carried out by the UK Tea and Infusions Association (UKTIA), found that 8-10 people admitted to regularly over-filling the kettle. So, if the average worker makes a cup of tea four times a day, it works out at over £73 a year on just boiling the kettle. 

And on top of this, the time an average person spends brewing up at work adds up to 104 hours every year. 

Studies have shown that an average UK worker takes around 24 minutes every day (5% of an eight-hour working day) to brew up or go on a tea / coffee run, the equivalent of 13 days per person per year. Based on the UK average salary of £27,700, this equates to nearly £1,385 that an employer could be paying staff to brew up each year. 

It's estimated that most people will drink on average almost 25,000 cups of tea throughout their working lives. 

The PR firm, now based in Alderley Park, can be contacted on 0333 577 0988. (Image - Alexander Greensmith / Macclesfield Nub News)

Pretzel's figures estimate 100 million cups of tea are guzzled down in the UK each day.

Businesses can work out how much they are spending on brews with this tea calculator.

See Also: Co-op funding will help group's mission to rewild Macclesfield

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