JOIN THE REAL KOMBUCHA REVOLUTION!

by GO Kombucha founder Gary Leigh, 2003 - present

A STROLL across to Whole Foods Piccadilly after the recent freedom march brought me quickly back down to earth. GO Kombucha’s usual spot in the chiller was bare and the shelf tags flagging June’s price promo had vanished since my visit days earlier.

Staff I’d known for years - themselves converts to the wonders of real Kombucha - solemnly explained that GO had been delisted by WF head office, which has dictated stock centrally since Amazon’s 2017 takeover (we were delisted from WF Kensington months ago so it wasn’t a complete surprise to see Piccadilly fall too!).

So, after 13 years and some 600+ demos across all their London stores building awareness of real kombucha from the ground up - and despite boasting a vast chiller groaning with weirdly whacky and downright bizarre “kombucha” concoctions - “Whole” Foods has gone from selling 100% “whole”/holistic kombucha in January 2008 to... none at all in late June ‘21!

Delistings are a part of retail life. This one is at least timely, reinforcing why a Real Kombucha Revolution is needed; to educate UK consumers who see the likes of Davinia Taylor, Michael Mosley and Liz Earle extolling the wonders of kombucha in the media… and expect the “kombucha” they find in Sainsburys and Holland and Barrett to be the same thing.

In truth the high street is flooded with corporations’ and large companies’ less than ethical variants, often pasteurised or made from the same generic filtered/stabilised “kombucha” base peddled by salesmen who have cynically sought to co-opt and exploit the European kombucha industry; enabling anyone to enter the market quickly by leap-frogging years of craft-learning and eliminating the fermentation process entirely. 100 European new brands now just ad tea and flavour to their instant mix ‘kombucha manna’, force carbonate and slap “kombucha” on the tin!

But the biggest threat to homegrown brewers is the literal invasion of “space invader” variants and out and out fakes insanely imported from as far afield as Australia, which are squeezing authentic brands off UK shop shelves one by one…

PT 2: TIDE OF ‘FRANKENBOOCH’ IMPORTS THREATEN FUTURE OF KOMBUCHA SECTOR

We upgraded our site 15 months ago to reposition GO Kombucha towards direct sales. Coinciding with lockdown was entirely fortuitous, otherwise being delisted by Whole Foods after 13 years may have proven fatal. We were able to ride the tide but other real UK brewers like Boochi, Nutra, Twisted, Curious and Edinburgh (above) are also facing an unending flood of ‘Frankenbooch’ imports that exploit markets where no regulation around kombucha exists.

Wild Fizz Kombucha folded a year ago having given up competing against invading brands with deep pockets providing the likes of Whole Foods and Planet Organic with months of free shelf fill; invariably weird “kombucha”concoctions formulated to taste like fruit soda pop for mainstream appeal as opposed to real kombucha which needs both shelf space and time to enable new customers to adjust to the acquired taste.

As we look to a national media campaign to raise this awareness, to educate the British public and expose the fake brands masquerading as kombucha and harming our trade, in the meantime we ask our followers to become real kombucha ambassadors; inform your local health food store, friends, Instagram followers, etc that there’s nothing holistic about buying industrialised “kombucha” shipped half way around the world in plastic when the real deal’s being brewed UK-wide!

When I funded the UK’s first retail kombucha range 18 years ago - going on to do 650+ demos reciting the same script 100k times - few people knew of it. So it’s especially galling after all that legwork that the same industry that contributed vastly to the obesity and diabetes epidemics with their sugar and chemical-laden sodas is donning a false halo and pushing lab-engineered ‘Frankenbooch’ as the real thing. Even Australian copycat brands have brought their rivalry and mass-produced “booch” to our shores.

A 2100 year tradition stands largely exploited and debased in 2021, which is why ‘ambassadors of real booch’ are asked to extol the benefits of drinking crafted kombucha over cheap canned supermarket variants and imports and help preserve the integrity and heritage of ‘legacy booch’ into the future.