Health-Ade Kombucha is further expanding its platform with Health-Ade Mixers, a new line of kombucha-based cocktail bases launching this spring.
The new line, which is rolling out as a Whole Foods Market exclusive, is made with kombucha and additional ingredients, including simple syrup, bitters and juice, to create a unique style of cocktail mixer. Packaged in Health-Ade’s 16 oz. apothecary glass bottles, the drinks are available in Moscow Mule, Spicy Margarita, Mint Mojito and Whiskey Sour varieties. Each bottle contains four servings and retails for $5.49.
According to Health-Ade co-founder and CEO Daina Trout, the line was developed after the company found that consumers were making their own cocktails at home using kombucha. Based on data collected by Whole Foods, the brand sought to develop a line of better-for-you mixers containing less sugar than other packaged mixers.
Unlike most mixers, which are shelf-stable and frequently merchandised near alcohol, Health-Ade Mixers are refrigerated and will be placed on shelf near the brand’s core kombucha products.
The line will be available in five regions of Whole Foods, including South Pacific, Northern California, Northeast, Rocky Mountains and the Pacific Northwest. Trout said the exclusive has a “soft end date” that will last several months. The launch will not be heavily marketed, but does target regions where consumers have already been buying kombucha for use as cocktail mixers.
The launch of Health-Ade Mixers comes as hard kombucha sales have seen a sharp increase. According to the company, sales of hard kombucha on alcohol delivery service Drizly grew 2,122% in 2020, while market research firm NielsenIQ reported that the category was up 128.5% to $53.6 million in the 52-week period ending December 26.
According to Trout, mixers is one way for Health-Ade to have an innovative stake in this growing space for alcoholic kombucha. However, the company is wary of launching a hard kombucha under the Health-Ade name (for one reason, the U.S. does not allow alcoholic beverages to use the word ‘Health’ in their names). While a potential subline has not been ruled out for the future, she said the mixers line meets a different use occasion altogether.
“Our mixers are an innovation within the kombucha world that allows for people to make their own cocktails, but it isn’t quite the same thing as hard kombucha, which is more like a White Claw. That’s a totally different world,” Trout said. “I think for me, it was seeing people already buying our product to make their own cocktails, so I’m just going to make those three steps easier for them.”
The new line is also being introduced less than a year after the company introduced Health-Ade Booch Pop, a line of shelf-stable prebiotic drinks positioned for soda use occasions, and Health-Ade Plus, a set of functional kombuchas also released as a Whole Foods exclusive. The recent innovations, Trout said, is part of a broader expansion for the Health-Ade brand into new categories.
Health-Ade Booch Pop itself will be repositioned later this year, dropping “Booch” from its name in order to further differentiate the line from kombucha, Trout said. The revised line will roll out this summer.
“Health-Ade, to me, is going to be an enterprise with many different products underneath it one day,” Trout said. “It’s not going to be just kombucha and things that are extensions of kombucha. And I’m excited about that. We’re building innovations now that are much bigger and really outside of kombucha for new consumers that will all be better-for-you beverage.”