YAYA Kombucha goes for honest and sustainable, even in shipping
Kombucha – whether you don’t know it yet or are already big fans, that it is becoming more popular in Europe by the day is a fact. It is a pure, unpasteurized soft drink that consists basically of tea, cane sugar and water. Tom Vollebregt, together with his girlfriend Charlotte, founded YAYA Kombucha, an Amsterdam-based kombucha brewery, in 2016. Little by little, they are conquering the Dutch and European markets with the delicious drinks. What is the story behind YAYA Kombucha, and how does this contemporary company serve customers at home and abroad with it? And how do Tom and his team ensure that the kombucha arrives fresh at its destination – even abroad? Tom told us all about it.
Introduction to kombucha
Just a few years ago, Tom was traveling the world as a Global Brand Marketer for a major sports brand. During a trip to America, Tom noticed that the Wholefoods had a lot of
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products in the supermarket are refrigerated – much more than in the Netherlands. “In the large refrigerated shelves, besides the well-known soft drinks and beer, I found ‘functional beverages’: drinks that not only taste good but also do something for you. There were about 30 different brands of kombucha in all kinds of different flavors. I had never seen this drink before – despite my passion for different food and drink cultures. I had to taste that!” says Tom.
And the taste of the sour drink did not leave Tom. But back in Holland, he couldn’t find it anywhere. “After some research, I found out that you can pretty much make this drink yourself at home. Kombucha has been made and drunk for over 2,000 years; in some cultures it even went around as ‘immortality tea,’” Tom explains enthusiastically. “On the marketplace I bought a kombucha scoby and so I set to work at home with a basic recipe. First in batches of 5 liters, which me and my friend then took to work in small bottles. The reactions from colleagues were very nice, it tasted like more.”
Having your own kombucha brewery
“When I tasted a very dirty kombucha in France, I thought: this can and must be better. I went to research and found out that American kombucha breweries were all run by young, hip, healthy, athletic people. This was what I wanted to do. I believed in the concept, and then with my friend Charlotte, I started developing flavors myself and building a brand,” Tom says.
“We presented our kombucha to 30 buyers and catering establishments, 29 of which were wildly enthusiastic. So we set up our first brewery. The purchase volumes were much higher than we expected; we kept scaling up. In the last three years we have scaled up and moved no less than three times: where we started with 1,000 units per week, we are now around 30,000!”
Sustainable refrigerated shipping
You can find YAYA Kombucha at retailers like Ekoplaza and the AH to go, but you can also order this drink on many terraces. In addition, YAYA Kombucha started selling through their own webshop during the lockdowns.
“Through our webshop, we sell
we do much more than we expected beforehand. So we also have customers outside the Netherlands, and we also regularly send samples to customers abroad. Because kombucha is an unpasteurized soft drink with live yeasts and bacteria culture, it is important that the drink is kept well chilled. Within the Netherlands, we use “same day delivery” and the products are only out of refrigeration for a short time, but for international shipments of a day or two, this is a challenge. Fortunately, Coolpack helped us secure the cold chain with a suitable packaging solution.”
For international shipments via the webshop, the kombucha is now shipped in the EcoCoolBox, an insulated packaging box made of partially recycled cardboard with an insulating wall filled with paper fibers. An environmentally-conscious shipping packaging with a luxurious appearance that can simply be disposed of with waste paper after use. Not for nothing did it win an NL Packaging Award. “In combination with gel packs, the kombucha remains chilled throughout the transport period. The EcoCoolBox is so well designed that you can use it even longer and it has a professional appearance. For us, it just communicates the right things. And it’s nice that they can always be delivered quickly by Coolpack,” said Tom.
Kombucha: a pure, honest soft drink
What Tom and Charlotte are all about is making a delicious, pure soft drink. A “clean label product” with organic base ingredients, which gets its flavor through fermentation. “Kombucha is a super pure product, especially if you compare it to other sodas that often get their flavor through chemical means. We are going for a local, honest and above all very tasty drink,” says Tom.
At Coolpack, we are big fans of this age-old drink in a new guise. We definitely recommend that you try it for yourself! Check out the entire assortment in the webshop and learn more about YAYA Kombucha at www.yayakombucha.com.
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