Local Business With Worldwide Impact: Tervis Tumbler
Sarasota takes pride in its natural splendor, world-class arts, and endlessly delectable dining. It’s also home to an icon of industry: Tervis. Creator of the original vacuum-insulated tumbler, Tervis has many imitators with formidable names such as YETI and Starbucks. However, this local company goes stronger than ever after 72 years in business founded on innovation, grounded in a “made-for-life” commitment, and fueled by customers’ passions.
“I feel that Tervis is loved by so many people, and a lot of that is because of what we’re able to do,” President Rogan Donelly says. “The affinity that a consumer has for the product is because we can make it their own. It’s an expression of themselves. ... And a little bit of that is because of the family culture that we have here.”
That’s three generations of family, to be exact. Donelly is the grandson of John Winslow, an entrepreneur and outdoorsman who bought the company from its engineer founders and moved it to Florida.
“He recognized that the functionality and the potential of that product would probably be more suited for Florida: boating, hot weather, the outdoorsy life,” Donelly says, and Winslow’s business acumen hit the bullseye: Yacht and fishing clubs snapped up the magical “Tumbler with Two Walls” that didn’t sweat, couldn’t break, and kept onboard beverages deliciously cool. Once Winslow got the idea to add embroidered adornments with golf, sailing, fishing, beachcombing, and other Floridian recreation themes between the two walls, Tervis’ takeoff was sealed.
“Certainly my grandfather and my father put a lot of their heart and soul into the company, and a lot of that has rubbed off onto the culture, and luckily we’ve had great responses from the consumer,” Donelly says. “A little bit of that emotion, that passion that they get in the brand, is certainly from a family-owned business.”
More than being made for life, Tervis products are made for your life. They go with you wherever you like to go, and are durable to stand up to anything you like to do. Their bright exteriors hold whatever colors your world with happiness: your team, your family (furry family included), your style, your cause—and much, much more, with over 10,000 unique designs that can be applied to drinkware ranging from sippy cups to stemless goblets.
A visit to the factory, which employs more than 600 people, reveals a manufacturing process that’s stayed remarkably personal as the technology has advanced. Humans partner with ultrasonic welders and ultraviolet printers to hand-decorate and assemble each order, whether it’s a single mug or 100,000 cups.
“A lot of our folks have been at the company for a long time,” Donelly says. “They’ve had a significant impact on it, and they really feel like it’s their own, which is great. That’s something that we really encourage.”
Recent additions to the Tervis product line include a bold move into stainless steel and insulated bowls that totally scream for ice cream. And now, through Tervis’s Augmented Reality products, you can even add video to your tumblers.
When asked if there’s a limit to the amount of innovation you can put into drinkware, Donelly says, simply, there’s really not. But the company’s forward-thinking nature shines most strongly in its fervor for sustainability. On one day in September, Tervis gave away 10,000 tumblers in exchange for people’s pledges to reject single-use plastics. Throughout the manufacturing process, Tervis reuses and recycles like it’s a religion. For example, its plastic tumbler components arrive from a Florida-based supplier in reusable packaging, which travels back and forth between factories until the cardboard is completely spent and ready for the recycling bin.
When he became the company’s president in 2016, Donelly reinstated Tervis’s renowned return-and-exchange policy for its original plastic products. Even a defective cup from 1950 can be brought back to the factory to be refashioned into 12-ounce tumblers, Tervis’s first fully-recycled product. The 12-ounce tumblers give these “made for life” cups something more like immortality. But technically speaking, the Tervis tumbler has been a sustainable product since 1946.
“It originally started with the quality,” Donelly says. “The quality is designed to last a lifetime, and therefore, designed to be sustainable before sustainability was really a buzzword.” In shaping the future of tumblers, Tervis is thinking about its customers’ future, too.
