“It's like milk. Pasturized milk is it's dead. Just like a baby calf. If they drink pasturized milk, they'll die. So, but I had to overcome this like negativity and misinformation about raw unprocessed food. But back to the point, like I admired them, but I learned from them because after the fiasco, they came back with a pasteurized product and then later sold the Coke. And I said, I rather not make my product than make something that I don't believe in.”
Refusing to dilute the product birthed his own competition
“Well, actually, it's funny. I gave birth to my own competition. And it was because luckily I was reluctant to cut corners, right? So, when I started to have capacity challenges yet again, the peanut gallery came into my life and was like, Hey, so just dilute it. Just like make more, like shorten the fermentation, add more water. And I was like, Guys, like if my consumer is not stupid and I'm not stupid, like they'll notice a difference and they'll stop buying it. So the unfortunate outcome of not doing those taking that advice was the shelves are empty. And so little by little, some of my competition has straight up said it on the record, is like I was buying GT's brand. I fell in love with it. I noticed they were having supply issues. I decided to make my own and sell it.”
“Why quiet? Well, because it's it's almost like a baby in the womb. I mean, I used to sometimes just stare at the the the vessels like fermenting cuz it almost you start seeing like this this life force, this living energy of bubbles and transformation and all of that. So what it is like the best analogy I can give for kombucha is it's it's like a plant, right? So the tea base is its soil and fertilizer. It breathes air. The humidity and warmth is almost like it's sunshine.”
Avoid scaling faster than you can master your current market
“I want to again learn from the AdWala lesson that I I still keep to heart almost daily is don't grow too fast. So like you know obviously I have executives now with the company and they're always pushing for what's that next phase of growth but I always remind them but can we say confidently have we mastered the US have we mastered the markets that we're currently in usually the answer is no because master is such a high standard it keeps us focused.”
GT pitched his first store in a suit with a briefcase
“Well, first I had to go and pitch it to Airwan, which I had no idea what I was doing, Rick. Like, I walked in in a suit and tie, hair slick back with a briefcase with my dad behind me for backup. I did. Yeah. And I I handed them a bottle of kombucha and they're like, What's this? I'm like, It's the a fermented tea from Manuria, China. I'll make it to order. It's the freshest, most potent, you know, kombucha that's out there, and I think your store needs it. I was expecting them to like play like hard ball with me, but it was just a series of very simple questions. So I never even opened up my briefcase cuz it was it was a very just genuine conversation.”
Mom's cancer tumor stopped spreading after drinking kombucha daily
“My mother was diagnosed with breast cancer about 2 years after she had been drinking the kombucha. And you know, both my parents were plant-based, spiritual, athletic, like picture of perfect health. And so my mom went to the doctor thinking she was pregnant. And they're like, Mrs. Dave, you're not pregnant, but you do have something growing inside you. And it's a very large cancer tumor in your right breast. But ironically, you know what happened, Rick, is like then two weeks later, it was almost like deja vu. She took us back out to the same table in the same backyard and was like, Hey, I have some more news. And she said, I went I was called into the doctor's office. And she shared with me that my cancer has not spread. It has not gone to my bones. And they brought me in because they want to know what I'm doing differently.”
A customer called the answering machine to thank him for healing her headache
“The second was maybe about like a week or two later when I got my first positive feedback where somebody called the 800 number that was on the label which PS was like an answering machine in my bedroom and it was a female and she said like hey I hope this is getting to somebody. I just want to let you know that I discovered this this unusual coma kombucha on the shelf and I bought it didn't know what it was but I had some and my headache went away. I just want to say thank you. Like this this made me feel good.”
The 2010 alcohol scare nearly ended the entire kombucha industry overnight
“2010 a brand that was had just started out on the east coast was delivering their product unrefrigerated probably for cost cutting reasons and it was starting to ferment more and the bottles started were like fizzing out on the shelf and somebody saw it and they called the health department and the health department came in and just standard procedure they grabbed the bottles and took them to their lab and what came out was a hit of alcohol above .5% which in this country unlike the rest of the world is the definition of non-alcoholic or alcoholic. And so like overnight there was like stop the press, stop everything. And every brand, including mine, was taken off the shelf.”
Instacart shoppers and sugar-obsession have replaced real grocery conversations
“The last time I did it was about a year ago. And I I noticed that like first of all, like 80% of people would walk up and they'd be having their phone in front of them. and like kind of talking to me but also like preoccupied. Second thing is half of those individuals were like Instacart and Door Dash and Amazon Prime shoppers. So I'm not even talking to the actual person who's shopping. And then on top of that, if I'm lucky and I am talking to somebody, I would tell this beautiful story of like what kombucha is, why it's special, and then they would look at me and eight out of 10 times Rick would be like, How much sugar is in it? And I'm like, Really? I just poured my heart and soul out to you.”
