Confession: I used to be a Coke addict; then I found Kombucha. A true story...
What is Kombucha?
Over the last 12 months Kombucha, a fermented naturally sparkling tea full of probiotics, beneficial enzymes and antioxidants, has found its way into Health Shops and Wholefood stores, Yoga studio's and supermarkets across N. America, New Zealand, Canada, Australia, Germany, The UK, Sweden, and South Africa, both commercially and in home-brewer kits. Waitrose was the first mass market retailer to stock Equinox Kombucha, brewed in hippy Hebden Bridge in Yorkshire. The Equinox range is already an award winning 'Taste' line and has a taste profile similar to Processo. I kid you not. Pretty good.
I'm reliably informed to expect that 2018 will see more and more Booch going mainstream as consumers shy away from sugary soft drinks that provide zero functional health benefits to the consumer. If the last decade was about KVI's (key value items) then surely this 'exponential' trend towards plants and nutritionally dense, fermented, functional clean food is pointing to stores of the future and an enhanced focus towards Key Vitality Items ™ as consumers seek ways in which to combat stress and anxiety, either through nutrition, movement, meditation and mindfulness, real connection, reduced EMF or tech frequencies (smart phones) in an effort to boost vitality and increase the ultimate human currency; 'energy' and flow.
Kombucha is a fermented beverage consisting of tea and sugar (from various natural sources, including cane sugar, fruit or honey) that’s used as a functional, probiotic food. It contains a colony of bacteria and yeast that are responsible for initiating the fermentation process once combined with sugar. Some drinks are still high in sugars although these are good sugars particularly if you're a mountain biker or a skier or perhaps a trail runner in Kenya who grew up with that carbonated hit of a Coke or a beer as the reward to the end of a long physically gruelling workout. Kombucha hits this sweet spot every time.
After fermentation, kombucha becomes carbonated and contains vinegar, B vitamins, enzymes, probiotics and a high concentration of acid (acetic, gluconic and lactic). These bacteria are known as “cellulose-producing bacteria,” meaning they produce cellulose, which acts as a shield to cells.
The sugar-tea solution is fermented by bacteria and yeast commonly known as a “SCOBY” (symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast).
The healthy 'probiotic' bacteria produced during the fermentation process of Kombucha line your digestive tract and support your immune system, as they absorb nutrients and fight infection and illness. Since 80 percent of your immune system is located in your gut, and the digestive system is the second largest part of your neurological system, it’s no surprise that the gut is considered the “second brain.”
Drinking Kombucha every day can help you to maintain peak immune health, which trickles down into an impressive number of benefits for your overall health.
Meta data studies have shown the following health benefits of Kombucha:
Detoxification - a great liver detoxer, cleansing the body of heavy metals
Joint Care - assists in preventing and healing joint damage
Digestion & Gut Health - high levels of probiotics and enzymes strengthens the gut and improves digestion. In extensive testing to treat stomach ulcers and leaky gut syndrome, kombucha is said to be as effective as many of the prescription drugs on the market.
Strengthened Immune Systems - probiotics and enzymes actively balance and heal the gut flora leading to healthier microbiomes which in turn lead to reduced anxiety and depression towards greater wellbeing and vitality. Personally, after suffering from chronic stomach ulcers over the last 5 years I found kombucha (and other fermented products such as kefir, kimchi and sauerkraut) to have replaced my chronic medication with far greater effects (hey, even if it's a Placebo, I'll take that feel-good feeling any day!)
Mental Health - Kombucha doesn’t just help your digestion; it has been proven to protect your mind, too. One way it can accomplish this is by the B vitamins it contains. B vitamins, particularly vitamin B12, are known to increase energy levels and contribute to overall mental wellbeing. Its high vitamin B12 content is one reason supplements sometimes contain dry kombucha products.
Ronald Reagen famously drank Kombucha to prevent the spread of his stomach cancer in 1987, dying only in 2004 of natural causes.
GT Dave, the largest kombucha brewer in the US started brewing to help his mother through chemotherapy when diagnosed with breast cancer. She is now fully recovered and credits her recovery to kombucha.
In the aftermath of Chernobyl nuclear disaster in the 1980's, a cluster of ladies seemingly resistant to the effects of radiation were examined by doctors and scientists who could not attribute a reason for this anomalous result save perhaps that they all consumed kombucha daily.
What Does It Taste Like?
Kombucha, also known as the 'tea of immortality' is believed to have been consumed in China more than 2000 years ago. With a complex taste profile spanning across spectrums of tart, sweet baseline notes, infused fruits and super-food botanicals, the delicious lingering fizz of a good batch of Booch leaves one feeling slightly 'tipsy', this little 'fuzzy' feeling, something I've come to associate with as a visceral shot of cleansing, sustainable energy coursing through my veins. I dream of a world where I can access Booch after every workout, at airports, on trains, in pubs, homes, pretty much anywhere we currently have fizzy water and Coke.
After fermentation, kombucha becomes carbonated and contains vinegar, B vitamins, enzymes, probiotics and a high concentration of acid (acetic, gluconic and lactic). These bacteria are known as “cellulose-producing bacteria,” meaning they produce cellulose, which acts as a shield to cells. (1) The sugar-tea solution is fermented by bacteria and yeast commonly known as a “SCOBY” (symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast).
The Case For Change; Sugar Tax for Vitality
Over the past year supermarkets have been reformulating their own brands fizzy drinks to avoid the tax while this week Waitrose banned sales of so-called energy drinks to under-16s, amid growing concerns about high levels of sugar and caffeine. Also in this week, Jamie Oliver campaigned the U.K's health secretary to ban the sale of sugary energy drinks to children who now reportedly consume these for breakfast (1-4 or 5 kids under 10 have one for breakfast) and almost 41% of Scottish teens have one at lunchtime resulting in a surge of behavioural problems and a dependancy on prescription drugs and interventions from big Pharma, it doesn't take a neuroscientist to see a rising global epidemic waiting to explode.
As larger Carbonated Soft Drink players create defensability options to protect against cannibalised revenue and profits in their respective battlefields, the focus increasingly on 'tactics' such as reduced pack sizes and increased price per pack to maintain profitable revenue growth, more and more look to Kombucha acquisitions and functional innovations to mitigate this steady stream of inevitable sales declines from 'refined sugars' to healthier, functional drinks that consumers want and not 'that big business wants to sell'.
Over the last 12 months I've obsessed over fermented foods and particularly Kombucha. I've met some of the pioneers in the industry, readying to tip the market, stealthily agitating categories with premium, high quality offers of booch as the new 'Key Vitality Items'™ in store. I approached leading 'pathfinders' in the industry to look into what it would take to set up large scale brewing licenses.
I even contacted a former colleague at Britvic who used to be in charge of the taps (faucets) and keg equipment to prototype some tests with large scale gym operators and other relevant chains. He never returned my call. I later discovered that this owner of Pepsi and other well known heritage sugar brands in the UK was speaking to the founder of L.A. Brewery, my favourite tasting Kombucha and one that I plugged on Instagram as one of my favourite for taste, made by Lois Avery. Lois had just signed a licensing agreement with Britvic which ended that conversation, fast. I saw this as a universal confluence of skills and intuition and thought to press on albeit with different players.
On a recent trip to Cape Town I scouted the shelves of health food shops, large retailers and smaller specialist mountain biking and surf shops, observing the landscape, visually benchmarking in my head to the shelves in the UK over the preceding 12 months, buying and trying everything in stock. Tough gig. Someone has to do it. I do love the product and genuinely can't drink enough of the stuff. I believe it to be more than a fad. More than the next craft beer even.
Anyway, Cape Town surprised me with many really tasty variants of booch (killing any ambitions of making a dash for a sunnier start-up project)
That aside, I did however find a great little hidden champion in the form of Theonista, a start-up founded by a US Health Policy advisor to Africa. Meghan Werner fell in love with Cape Town and ended up creating a potent brand with coherent price, pack and product architecture in the Kombucha world, outside of the US, in my view at least. I was so impressed with particularly her Maté Ginger and range filled with an abundance of locally infused herbs, spices and botanicals. And boy does she create a range of flavours from the super-food of the earth. Tasty and considered. Very impressive indeed. I videoed her range of large, medium and 'impulse' packs with key price points and awesome flavours in the Wellness Warehouse on Kloof Str. Probably not your average lunatic behaviour, excited to find yet another access point for the world's next big 'Coke'.
What next?
USING the Fifth P SOCC Model (one that we developed for the worlds top 20 consumer goods firms) to develop winning price, pack and promotional architectures in the highly competitive retail industry is a shopper-centric framework that informs the development of winning growth opportunities. It rests upon the principle that alongside innovation and regular segment level prototyping, sector expansion tends to come from levers of shopper behaviour (frequency, penetration, average weight of purchase & trip spend) and that these need to be activated within the parameters of what works for category, the brand, the customer and within the competitive set.
The SOCC (What is right for the Shopper? What Is Right For the Organisation? What Is Right for the Customer? and Competitor War Gaming) model and promotional FAM model (funding, activation and mechanics) is a proprietary tool and structured process for CPG players to create profitable revenue growth options in their respective battlefields. The tool was developed and tested at Fifth P working collaboratively with global beverage leaders Coca Cola European Partners in the UK (pilot) and rolled out across its European sites as best practice before being rolled out to the wider market including Carlsberg, Britvic (Pepsi) and Mars across Europe where it generated >£10m value in ROI per project (average £value of ROI across major multiples for strategy development + execution and capability/ knowledge transfer)
Develop and Scale your next Key Vitality Items and ...
''Let food be thy medicine'' - Hypocrites
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