Student group recognized by NYSE

The NYSE Euronext’s Movers and Changers challenge named a Tulane team one of its three finalists.

Three Tulane students will travel to New York to pitch their proposal to sell organic tea.

The Movers and Changers Challenge involves planning a business that benefits the community or the world while remaining profitable and sustainable, a business model often referred to as social entrepreneurship. The winning team will win $25,000 to help start its business.

The team — headed by founder and CEO Jay Zhao; Kathryne Shelton, vice president of social causes and relations; and Nic LaGatta, vice president of business operations and distribution — won $5,000 and free trips to New York to take part in a global entrepreneurship event.

“I’m excited to go to New York for the first time and I’m happy to represent New Orleans and my school,” LaGatta said.
The name of the team’s planned business is Silk Road Trading. The company will buy tea grown in China and pay growers fair trade prices. The tea will not be processed in factories; rather, it will be dried and prepared traditionally, organically and in an environmentally-friendly way.

“The idea for our company is to sell good tea for a good cause,” Zhao said. “Kathryne Shelton works with the good cause and Nic LaGatta works with the good tea aspect.”

The tea will be transported from China via air or sea. The plan is to start selling the tea on campus and at local stores, and then in a larger area of New Orleans and eventually the Gulf Coast. LaGatta said that they will probably start distributing from a pick-up truck until they can hire a logistics and distribution service.

“We hope to get an account with a supermarket or a tea broker or another company to help get the product out there,” LaGatta said.

The tea’s working name is Wet Tea because the team will use part of the profits to educate about wetland recession. Silk Road Trading plans to plant cypress trees in the wetlands. The team wants to get schools involved in programs similar to those of Bayou Rebirth, a non-profit which takes volunteers to the wetlands to educate them about wetland recession and to get them involved in reducing it by taking part in activities like planting trees provided by sponsors like Silk Road Trading.

“We want this concept to be sustainable. We want to show that it’s possible to be for-profit but also be social entrepreneurs. Our idea is to live in and be very conscious of the community while trying to help it,” Shelton said.

LaGatta described the philosophy behind Silk Road Trading and its Wet Tea product.

“What if a person can go into a store and vote for a cause with their purchases?” LaGatta said. We’d like to give people a chance to do good with the products they buy. Just because a business isn’t selfless doesn’t mean it has to be selfish.”