GT Dave

So like even in the last couple of years, there's been brands that have said they need to be kept refrigerated.

So they're immediately in my set, which is a highly desirable set because the store has only so much refrigeration space.

So that's how they're able to kind of naturally appeal to a shopper that's maybe looking for a product like mine because they think refrigerated means fresh, means pure.

But a lot of these brands, if you look at the ingredients, you're like, what's in this that needs to be kept refrigerated?

Well, I mean, the biggest candidly was when the kombucha space, call it, was getting so popular because I was selling out and, you know, the category was growing even after like the 2008 Great Recession.

Almost every industry was soft, but health and wellness was still growing.

And within health and wellness, kombucha was like on fire.

And so what happened is overnight you had like five dozen brands.

Really?

Yeah.

Like every day there was an announcement of another kombucha brand.

And it was, you know, it was thrilling to see because you're like, oh, we're part of a movement.

But then you started to see like they were changing the narrative.

They were going after other brands.

Some were pasteurized.

So it just really started to confuse the conversation.

And then 2010...

a brand that 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 with like fizzing out on the shelf.

And somebody saw it and they called the health department