Aqua Vitea

Aqua ViTea is a Vermont-based kombucha brewer producing fermented tea beverages made from green or black tea, organic cane sugar and a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast, flavored with fruits, roots, herbs and spices. Its products are positioned as lower-sugar, lower-calorie alternatives to soda and sports drinks, containing live probiotics, digestive enzymes and antioxidants, and are verified non-alcohol compliant at below 0.5% ABV. The lineup includes bottled and draft kombucha, an Aqua Seltzer probiotic seltzer line, CBD chaga chai, and AfterGlow Hard Kombucha, an alcoholic offering positioned against beer, cider and spiked seltzers.

The company brews at a Middlebury, Vermont facility at 153 Pond Lane, the former Woodchuck Cider plant, employing a team described on its site as thirty full-time employees. Ingredients include sustainably sourced organic tea from Middlebury's Stone Leaf Teahouse, with tea sourced from gardens in China and India that the company says pay livable wages to over 575 farmers. An in-house microbiologist analyzes product safety and purity.

Sustainability practices reported by the company include composting roughly 26,000 lbs of spent tea annually for local agriculture, contributing 75,000 lbs of wastewater per year to an anaerobic digester project that produces renewable natural gas for Middlebury College, upcycling the roughly 50 ml of organic alcohol removed from each bottle of kombucha, and offering refillable glass bottles at its kombucha fountains, which account for up to 35% of fountain fills.

Founding story

In 2005 Jeff Weaber and his wife Katina Martin moved from Portland, Oregon, where Martin earned degrees in naturopathy, midwifery and acupuncture and Weaber worked as a brewer at The Lucky Labrador Brewing Company, to a farmhouse in Salisbury, Vermont. Weaber's exposure to fermentation at work and to functional foods and digestive health through Martin led him to kombucha. The couple brewed on the farm and tested the product at local farmers markets before officially launching Aqua ViTea in 2007, founding it, in Weaber's words, on "a health mission, not a money mission," alongside Martin's naturopathic clinic.

Business model

Aqua ViTea brews and bottles kombucha and related fermented beverages at its own Vermont production facility and sells them primarily through wholesale channels: a network of 11 distributors places product in more than 3,000 retail stores, including co-ops, natural food retailers and grocery chains. The company also supplies kombucha on tap through refrigerated fountains installed in stores, and operates a small direct-to-consumer online shop for merchandise. Alcohol extracted from the kombucha creates an additional revenue stream, being sold or repurposed for vodka, herbal tinctures, hand sanitizer and new beverage development.

Revenue comes from sales of bottled and draft kombucha, hard kombucha and seltzer through distributors and retail stores, from kombucha fountain programs, from sales of merchandise via its online shop, and from sales of alcohol extracted during dealcoholization for uses such as vodka production, tinctures and hand sanitizer.

Traction

Products are carried in more than 3,000 stores via 11 distributors, and the company reports thirty full-time employees at its Middlebury facility and distribution to states across the country. It has been voted one of the Best Places to Work in Vermont.

Latest developments

Recent additions to the product range include AfterGlow Hard Kombucha, a CBD chaga chai and a probiotic seltzer line (Aqua Seltzer). The company's store locator was listed as being updated, with customers directed to contact the company for retail locations.