Over the last five years, more and more women are becoming inspired to start their own ventures in the beverage industry. With the rise of health and wellness, many young women see this as an essential opportunity to not only step into the industry but to take leadership and turn their vision into action.

We sat down with Danielle from Physic Kombucha to learn about her story and what it takes to launch a new business. Physic Kombucha is a small brand based in Kalamazoo, Michigan specializing in blending kombucha with cold-press juice. The founders, Danielle and Meredith, are heavily involved in the world of nutrition; Danielle is a Registered Dietitian while Meredith is a Health Coach & Personal Trainer.

Q1: How did your background inspire you to start a kombucha brand?

   Meredith and I have been heavily involved in the fitness and nutrition industry for most of our lives. We began to see huge potential in kombucha when we learned about how it helps with healing the gut (often referred to as the “second brain”). Back then, the beverage scene in Kalamazoo was mainly overtaken by craft beers and other similar products that, although are very tasty, aren’t exactly the healthiest alternatives. We entered the scene to help promote our ideas behind a healthy lifestyle with a product that is both easy to consume and helps bring balance to people's nutrition.

Q2: What is something that makes your products unique?

The blend that we create when using cold press juice to flavor kombucha is something that is not very common and it helps bring out a different texture to our final product. We aim to bring a fizziness that’s very similar to the one found in champagne while keeping the yeast at a fairly mild level. Some of our customers have mentioned that our products are a good entry point to kombucha for people who have never tried it before. We think this is great because it helps us to obtain customers purely from their own curiosity.
 

Q3: How is your marketing structured right now?
So because most of our focus has been on developing the best possible kombucha recipe, most of our efforts have been quite organic. We currently sell at a local farmers market and have received most of our clientele from visitors. Our activity in social media does help a lot, but it mainly serves just as a way to leverage what we already do in person.
 

Q4: Where do you see Physic Kombucha in the next 5-10 years?
This is an interesting question because we tend to talk about this almost every day. At the moment, Physic Kombucha is still something we do at the side from our regular jobs, but we do hope to expand it beyond our local community. However, doing so will take an extraordinary amount of scaling and brand awareness throughout Michigan and neighboring states. At the moment Meredith and I are the only ones in charge of brewing, bottling, and selling the drinks, and although this works for our local community, we’re going to need a far higher demand to be able to expand and take other markets. This is something we hope to accomplish, but it will certainly take some time.
 

Q5: If Physic disappeared tomorrow, would anyone care?
Even though our presence is very small, we do have a passionate group of people who like and appreciate our products. Customers at the farmers market and at another coffee shop in which we sell our products will certainly miss seeing us. We’ve built a bit of a name for ourselves in our local community, and our presence serves as a way of keeping up with the balance in their lives.

Want to learn more about Physic Kombucha? 
Click here to find out!