Does being the biggest brand in a beverage category, as well as the one that brought it into the public sphere, give you the right to reorganize it as it evolves? If you’re GT Dave, founder of GT’s Kombucha, the answer is “yes.”
Certainly, there’s reason for Dave to want to: The kombucha set that started with unpasteurized bottles delivered to small Los Angeles accounts now includes both refrigerated and pasteurized shelf-stable products, bottles, cans, and jugs, all representing a range of different brewing techniques and approaches to ingredients. For the average consumer, Dave argues, the category has become confusing to navigate. And his own brand, composed of three distinct brew styles, with multiple flavors under each, all refrigerated and raw, isn’t an exception.
“As we look at the overall set, and then also our own product lines within the set, there was an opportunity to streamline and delineate the products that we make, how we make them, and the usage occasions for them,” he said. Dave himself introduced his new branding architecture earlier this month, in a video that he put onto his Instagram feed, one that is constantly scrutinized by kombucha fans.
The idea, he said, is to let consumers know exactly what they are getting in each bottle. Over the years, the company had evolved to offer kombucha in three different styles, with a variety of other additions: Enlightened, which could be placed anywhere in the store and purchased by anyone; Classic, which contains less than 1% ABV and requires ID to purchase; and Classic Gold, which contains 3% ABV. Both Enlightened and Classic existed underneath the grouping of either Synergy — which are sweetened with fruit juice — and the company’s flagship traditional kombucha, made with organic cane sugar. As both the non-alcoholic Enlightened and the 21-and-over Classic products are often merchandised side-by-side, consumers could easily pick up the wrong product.
The new lineup consolidates the various groupings into three simpler definitions: Synergy, which is exclusively non-alcoholic (Enlightened) and sweetened with fruit juice; Classic, made with cane sugar and containing more than 0.5% ABV; and Hard Kombucha, which replaces Classic Gold, the higher ABV (between 3-4%), line which debuted with three SKUs less than two years ago
The callout for “raw and unpasteurized” will also be showcased more prominently on each bottle’s label. In recent years, Dave has been open and vocal in his support for developing a standard of identity for kombucha and for establishing transparency in how individual brands present their brews.
“If you look at any other adjacent category, for example the fruit juice category, when you go to that section you know what’s from concentrate, what is flash pasteurized and what is freshly squeezed,” he said. “Fresh juice has a different price point and shelf-life than a pasteurized juice, and the consumer knows why. Currently in the kombucha set, there’s no rhyme or reason with pricing and positioning. If brands can call out what it is they are offering and their point of differentiation, I think the consumer will have greater clarity of what it is they want and need.”
The shift from Classic Gold to Hard Kombucha represents the biggest change, moving the product into a different product family. Under its new branding, the line features a revamped look that more prominently calls out the ABV and reflects a “more sophisticated personality that signals to the consumer that this is an adult beverage,” Dave explained. Perhaps most importantly, Hard Kombucha will be merchandised with other alcoholic drinks whenever possible.
After launching Classic Gold, Dave said he realized that the use occasion for the product line was “dramatically different” than that of Enlightened or even Classic. But, yet, other than the name and a slight gold accent on the label, it was not very visually distinctive from the others.
“The consumer’s eye is different in the alcohol set than it is in the functional beverage set,” Dave said, “so we want to make sure that, ideally, we straddle both worlds so we are telling the consumer that this is an adult beverage, but also that this is not your typical adult beverage.”
For Dave and his company, for which alcohol content has been a flashpoint for controversy in the past, there’s a touch of irony in seeing consumers now actively seek higher ABV brews. Thanks to brands such as Boochcraft, Wild Tonic, Flying Embers and others, hard kombucha has begun to establish a foothold as a viable beverage alcohol category. But even as he gives Hard Kombucha a clearer role within the product portfolio, Dave said his health-first approach remains consistent. In order to preserve the natural benefits of kombucha, GT’s Hard Kombucha is made with a dual fermentation, in which raw kombucha is blended with a separately fermented high-ABV base (such as wine or beer) to achieve the desired alcoholic content without compromising the integrity or efficacy of the kombucha.
“Once you start going above 3-4% ABV, alcohol starts becoming more of the feature of the product and the primary driver of the purchase occasion,” he said. “At the end of the day, my brand stands for health and wellness. We want to do anything and everything we can to handhold our consumers down a path of self improvement and better choices. And if that means we can’t participate in certain current trends, then that’s OK with me.”
While the new design should help make the GT’s range easier to navigate on-shelf, just getting to those coolers is more difficult than it was a few months ago. With the COVID-19 pandemic influencing consumer shopping habits, Dave said, kombucha is one of many perishable products whose distribution is being squeezed as retailers shift their attention to eggs, milk and orange juice while reprioritizing other products.
“There are only so many trucks and so many dock appointments and so many clerks that can stock the shelves,” he said. “I think every brand in the perishable space is seeing a bottleneck in the supply chain. And depending on who the retailer is and what region you are in, you are seeing some being left out while stores focus on more staple foods.”
The company’s step into e-commerce aims to address the challenge of getting products to consumers that want them. Earlier this week, GT’s announced it is beginning to take orders for home delivery in the Greater Los Angeles, Orange County and San Diego areas. It’s a move that Dave said the brand had been exploring internally for some time — but which was accelerated by the COVID pandemic. Kombucha’s constraints in terms of refrigeration, shelf life and container format puts it in a “perfectly impossible position” as an e-commerce product, he said, and as a result the company is looking to implement a “white glove approach” to ensure proper handling and safe delivery. For the moment, the company is processing orders through its web site and using a local distributor for fulfillment. Insights and feedback from the launch will help shape if, how, and when GT’s chooses to extend the channel into other cities — Portland, New York, and Seattle among them — where the company has a strong following.
“I think almost every brand now has seen that, whether there’s a replenishment issue or whether the channel that you play in has been shut down, like food service and on-premise, brands need to quickly pivot to find an alternative method of getting your products to consumers,” he said. “We are not invincible to this challenge.”