When former Kombrewcha CEO and co-founder Ariel Glazer left the alcoholic kombucha brand in 2018, he promised himself two things about his next venture: it wouldn’t involve selling physical items and it wouldn’t rely on traditional retail distribution.
Glazer ultimately broke his first promise while keeping the second: His new venture is LaDiDa, a line of hemp-infused oat milk canned lattes which ships direct-to-consumer via an on-demand text message ordering model. It’s currently available in two flavors, Matcha and Golden Turmeric, with Honey Lavender launching in May, for $60 per one-time purchase of a 6-pack of 8 oz. cans or $45 for a subscription.
To order the product, consumers must first sign up online and can then purchase the lattes from that point on via text message. LaDiDa subscription model is offered in the customer’s preferred time frame of every one, two or three weeks. Because its distribution centers are small and scattered throughout the country, it offers free overnight shipping to 41 states. On-demand delivery is also available 9 a.m. to 6. p.m. for consumers in New York City and Los Angeles, with orders received in 45 to 90 minutes.
“People are busy,” said Glazer. “People want their lattes now. Super convenient, super easy. But really the idea behind the brand is just to make people’s lives easier and better.”
LaDiDa’s DTC subscription model supports its goal to fit into consumers’ wellness routines, as the lattes are marketed for different times throughout the day as they take consumers from “La-Di-Dawn to La-Di-Dusk.” Matcha, the only caffeinated offering, offers “Morning Momentum,” while Golden Turmeric provides “Midday Meditation,” and the forthcoming Honey Lavender is a “Calming Close.”
“I think there’s a lot of focus from companies on energy drinks, on stimulating drinks, but there’s less focus on other parts of the day where you want to calm down and you want to relax,” he said.
Glazer said he’s been drinking lattes with hemp extract that are not coffee-based at coffee shops for years, but realized they don’t exist in a ready-to-drink format. Rather than introducing a familiar beverage that is now being infused with hemp extract, Glazer said LaDiDa fills a gap in canning a hemp-infused product many consumers have already been enjoying.
“There’s hemp in gummy bears, there’s hemp in water, there’s hemp in soda, but who’s been drinking hemp in water and hemp in soda before these products came out?” Glazer said. “The thing about lattes is that it’s been going around for a long time. People have been drinking it in coffee shops for years. And we’re the first ones to put it in a can.”
During his time at Kombrewcha, an early pioneer in the hard kombucha category, Glazer said he learned a lot about how to introduce to the market a beverage product people know and love in a format that isn’t easily accessible. However, the traditional retail model the brand followed often left him feeling disconnected with consumers, and he ultimately hopes to take a different course with this new approach.
“People who bought [Kombrewcha], who enjoyed it and took it home and shared with their friends, I didn’t even know who they were,” he said. “I had no idea what they were thinking. We had very little connection to them. And that was a shame. And I wanted to do it better.”
While Glazer said the brand is open to taking on retail partners in the future, the ultimate goal for LaDiDa is to “offer products wherever the consumer is.”
“I want it to bring real value to make people’s lives better,” he said. “So they don’t have to go to the store just to get the products they love.”