Latest / Hurdle with Emily Abbate / Episode 42: GT Dave, Founder & CEO GT's Living Foods

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Episode 42: GT Dave, Founder & CEO GT's Living Foods · Hurdle with Emily Abbate

0:01
Speaker 1: Another week, another pod. What's going on, guys? You're listening
0:05
Speaker 1: to episode forty two of Hurdle, a podcast that talks
0:08
Speaker 1: to everyone from top CEOs and entrepreneurs to athletes about
0:12
Speaker 1: how they got through took times, hurdles of sorts by
0:15
Speaker 1: leaning into wellness. My name's Emily A Body and today
0:18
Speaker 1: I'm chatting with GT Dave. He's the founder of GT's
0:21
Speaker 1: Living Foods. Want to give a shout out to my sponsor, Athleticgreens,
0:25
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0:29
Speaker 1: delicious and gives me the boost I need to start
0:32
Speaker 1: every single day off right. They're offering a special deal
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Speaker 1: to Hurdle listeners. It's twenty travel packs a ninety nine
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0:43
Speaker 1: Just head on over to Athleticgreens dot com slash Hurdle
0:46
Speaker 1: to claim it. No code necessary again, that's Athleticgreens dot
0:50
Speaker 1: com slash Hurdle. I recorded this episode with Gtdave when
0:54
Speaker 1: I was in LA last month, and listening back to
0:56
Speaker 1: it this week, I realized just how jam packed it
0:59
Speaker 1: is with info on it, everything from gut Health to
1:02
Speaker 1: just finding your own path and trusting the process. In
1:05
Speaker 1: today's episode of Hurdle, GT tells me that in late
1:07
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety four, his mom, Loraine, was diagnosed with a
1:10
Speaker 1: highly aggressive form of breast cancer. When she healed, his
1:14
Speaker 1: mom shared with doctors that she had been drinking a
1:16
Speaker 1: very pungent homemade tea, and that tea was Gd's kombucha. Now,
1:21
Speaker 1: before we continue here, a little bit on what kombucha is.
1:24
Speaker 1: It's essentially a concoction of bacteria and tea and sugar, which,
1:28
Speaker 1: when I say that sounds kind of questionable, but it
1:31
Speaker 1: dates back about two thousand years ago to ancient China
1:35
Speaker 1: when it was regularly consumed there as a treatment for inflammation,
1:38
Speaker 1: and it was at the time, thoughts a word of cancer.
1:41
Speaker 1: So anyway, inspired by his mom's experience in his Hurdle moment,
1:45
Speaker 1: it became Gd's mission to make kombucha accessible for everyone everywhere.
1:50
Speaker 1: At just fifteen, he began bottling his brew in the
1:52
Speaker 1: kitchen of his parents' house, and then he really became
1:55
Speaker 1: one of the first people to mass market kombucha. Now,
1:58
Speaker 1: in my experience, kamuchi can be very pooring. You either
2:00
Speaker 1: love it or you hate it, and we talk about
2:02
Speaker 1: that in today's episode, But just to shed a little
2:05
Speaker 1: bit of light of how widespread kombucha drinking is. According
2:09
Speaker 1: to Ink, in twenty fifteen, consumers bought six hundred million
2:12
Speaker 1: dollars worth of kombucha and more than half of that
2:15
Speaker 1: was gts. And now you can buy it everywhere from
2:18
Speaker 1: Airwon Market in Venice, California, to the shelves of Walmart
2:22
Speaker 1: and Target. I'm pretty sure on the bodega downstairs where
2:24
Speaker 1: my apartment sells it. It's absolutely everywhere. And to hear
2:28
Speaker 1: about the beginning of such a massive brand in today's
2:30
Speaker 1: market in this episode, it's it's really really interesting. As always,
2:35
Speaker 1: hit me up Twitter, Instagram, Facebook at Hurdle Podcast. If
2:38
Speaker 1: you're listening and you like what you hear, make sure
2:40
Speaker 1: to share it on your Instagram story. I'll make sure
2:43
Speaker 1: to post it from the Hurdle account. Also, please pretty
2:46
Speaker 1: please head on into the iTunes store, rate and review Hurdle,
2:49
Speaker 1: Highlighting this week a review from Zach. He says the
2:52
Speaker 1: podcast is incredibly helpful. I'm on the road for work
2:55
Speaker 1: and anytime I feel uncentered, especially on a travel day,
2:58
Speaker 1: I pop in my headphones and just listen. Emily's created
3:01
Speaker 1: a conversation combining mental health, wellness, and nutrition to help
3:04
Speaker 1: navigate through the twist and turns life has to offer.
3:07
Speaker 1: Thank you for this, Thank you for listening to that. Also,
3:11
Speaker 1: if you have a hurdle moment of your own or
3:12
Speaker 1: just want to say hi, feel free to shoot me
3:14
Speaker 1: an email. It's Emily at Hurdle dot us. And I
3:19
Speaker 1: think that's it. I'll stop rambling now let's get to
3:22
Speaker 1: hurdling today. I'm sitting here with GT.
3:33
Speaker 2: Dave.
3:34
Speaker 1: He's the founder and CEO of GT's Living Food. I've
3:38
Speaker 1: got to be honest with you. One of the first
3:40
Speaker 1: things I did when I got to Los Angeles this
3:42
Speaker 1: week was go to Arawon Market and buy a Gt' kombucha.
3:48
Speaker 2: That's amazing. I love you for that.
3:50
Speaker 1: Why don't you tell me a little bit about your company,
3:53
Speaker 1: because I know that people probably know you mostly for kombucha,
3:56
Speaker 1: and we'll get into exactly what kombucha is and all
3:59
Speaker 1: the things, but tell me a little bit about Gg's
4:02
Speaker 1: Loving Food.
4:03
Speaker 2: Absolutely well. First of all, we started off as Millennium Products,
4:06
Speaker 2: which was the company that I started in nineteen ninety five.
4:10
Speaker 2: You just mentioned air one Airwin was actually my first
4:13
Speaker 2: health food store that I ever sold into. They sold
4:16
Speaker 2: my first bottle. This is the air One on Beverly Boulevard,
4:19
Speaker 2: And it was really them that took a chance on
4:21
Speaker 2: me because at the time I was just fifteen years old,
4:25
Speaker 2: I was making kombucha out of my parents' kitchen. I
4:27
Speaker 2: had started drinking it because my parents, who were two
4:30
Speaker 2: very holistic people, started to make it and drink it
4:32
Speaker 2: in the household for the last two years, and I
4:35
Speaker 2: was observing their affinity for it and how they started
4:38
Speaker 2: to notice changes in their body. That and my mother's
4:41
Speaker 2: kind of battle with breast cancer where the doctor suggested
4:44
Speaker 2: that kombucha helped keep her body strong. Those two things
4:46
Speaker 2: really inspired me, and so I started to not only
4:49
Speaker 2: drink it, I started to make it and then subsequently
4:52
Speaker 2: started to bottle it and sell it at the local
4:53
Speaker 2: health food stores, air One being the first.
4:55
Speaker 1: Okay, And that was in late nineteen ninety four when
4:57
Speaker 1: your mother had breast cancer.
5:00
Speaker 2: It was actually nineteen ninety three when she was first diagnosed,
5:03
Speaker 2: so it was a two year journey of drinking it
5:06
Speaker 2: and then she was diagnosed a little bit before I
5:10
Speaker 2: had my kind of revelation that kombucha needed to be
5:13
Speaker 2: shared with the world.
5:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, how did you start getting into that at home?
5:19
Speaker 2: We know it's interesting. So my parents raised me vegetarian.
5:21
Speaker 2: So I was raised vegetarian literally in my mother's womb,
5:26
Speaker 2: and then certainly afterwards my parents remained me on a
5:29
Speaker 2: plant based diet. So my parents were very progressive, right
5:32
Speaker 2: They not only you know, I was baptized Catholic as
5:35
Speaker 2: a kid, so I certainly had a religious background and
5:37
Speaker 2: went to Catholic school for eight years of my first
5:40
Speaker 2: eight years of my life. But they were also very spiritual.
5:44
Speaker 2: And what that meant is they, you know, made a
5:47
Speaker 2: conscious effort to seek additional knowledge and insight of you know,
5:51
Speaker 2: what does this world mean, what does our life mean,
5:53
Speaker 2: what's our purpose? All of that? So in doing so,
5:56
Speaker 2: they took me to India and I stayed there many
5:59
Speaker 2: times with them as a young child. The first trip
6:01
Speaker 2: was when I was three years old and stayed in
6:03
Speaker 2: an astrom And the reason why that is important is
6:05
Speaker 2: that I believe it kind of slowly molded and shaped
6:08
Speaker 2: me into a kind of a unique person where I
6:11
Speaker 2: have a Western perspective, but certainly an Eastern philosophy. And
6:15
Speaker 2: that together, I think culminates to become you know, this
6:19
Speaker 2: high value of food and how it can be your
6:22
Speaker 2: medicine as well as your poison, and how you're very
6:24
Speaker 2: sensitive to the things that not only you put inside yourself,
6:27
Speaker 2: but certainly what you surround.
6:28
Speaker 1: Yourself with, right, Right.
6:30
Speaker 2: And so kimbucha kind of embodied all of that. Right.
6:33
Speaker 2: It's this nature crafted, organic, living, breathing elixir, if you will,
6:39
Speaker 2: that to make it you really have to pour your
6:41
Speaker 2: heart and soul into it. It's not something that's mass produced,
6:44
Speaker 2: it's not something that you know comes out of a lab.
6:47
Speaker 2: It's really something that's, as I said, crafted by nature,
6:50
Speaker 2: and its purpose is to restore balance. And I believe
6:53
Speaker 2: balance not only in your body and your gut, but
6:55
Speaker 2: also balance in your life is essential to good health.
6:59
Speaker 1: Of course. Okay, talk to me a little bit specifically,
7:02
Speaker 1: Like break it down for someone who's never heard of
7:04
Speaker 1: kombucha before. What's kombucha?
7:07
Speaker 2: Yeah? To put it simply, kombucha is essentially a tea
7:10
Speaker 2: based version of a yogurt or a kifer. And what
7:14
Speaker 2: I mean by that is there's a wonderful world of
7:18
Speaker 2: these fermented products, right, but unfortunately here in the US,
7:21
Speaker 2: we're really only familiar with yogurt, keifer maybe like sour
7:27
Speaker 2: kraut and kimchi, and that's pretty much it. But there's
7:30
Speaker 2: a variety of stuff. But the similarity of all these
7:33
Speaker 2: fermented foods is they all start with a base, and
7:35
Speaker 2: that base typically has some kind of nutrient and or
7:38
Speaker 2: carbohydrate source. So for milk, it's the sugars in the milk,
7:41
Speaker 2: For keifer, it's the sugars in the liquid base. For
7:45
Speaker 2: sour kraut or kimchi, it's the sugars in the vegetables.
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Speaker 2: All these are carbohydrates that these active cultures then start
7:51
Speaker 2: to feed on and create this fermented result. So for
7:55
Speaker 2: kimbucha essentially starts off as an organic tea base that
7:58
Speaker 2: sweetened with or sugar fruits, usee agave, honey, you name it,
8:03
Speaker 2: and the culture then feeds off of the carbohydrates of
8:07
Speaker 2: what we call fermnteen agent and transforms the tea into
8:10
Speaker 2: this like tangy, effervescent, really crisp and bright result that
8:16
Speaker 2: when you ingest, it helps balance your body's acid alkaline,
8:19
Speaker 2: helps detoxified liver, replenishes good bacteria into your gut. So
8:24
Speaker 2: it really does act kind of like an adaptogenic, which
8:27
Speaker 2: means it treats the body holistically and helps the body
8:30
Speaker 2: heal itself.
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Speaker 1: Okay, so you are making much at home with your parents, Yes,
8:36
Speaker 1: and you grew up doing that. Yes, that's like not
8:38
Speaker 1: something that a lot of people can say, right.
8:41
Speaker 2: Believe me, At the time, it didn't feel like such
8:43
Speaker 2: a cool thing because growing up vegan and vegetarian in
8:47
Speaker 2: like the nineties was I mean, like, imagine just opening
8:51
Speaker 2: up your lunch box and you're playing out like tofu
8:55
Speaker 2: and you know all these things, and your friends are
8:57
Speaker 2: eating like all chicken sandwiches. Yeah, and came cartons of milk,
9:01
Speaker 2: and my parents would let me touch dairy. So there
9:03
Speaker 2: was a time, probably for a good several years, where
9:06
Speaker 2: I was embarrassed of how I was raised, and I
9:08
Speaker 2: would stop eating in front of my friends. I would,
9:11
Speaker 2: you know, just say I'm not hungry when we would
9:13
Speaker 2: go out, because I really did feel like the black sheet.
9:16
Speaker 2: It's kind of ironic that now being vegetarian, being plant
9:19
Speaker 2: based is such a thing. It's such a thing. Yeah,
9:22
Speaker 2: and I love it because I think the world needs
9:24
Speaker 2: more of it. There's certainly a variety of reasons why
9:27
Speaker 2: being plant based is good, but it's just kind of
9:28
Speaker 2: ironic that I wish I grew up today twenty years
9:33
Speaker 2: ago because of a very different world. Yeah.
9:35
Speaker 1: I mean, just down the street in La I feel
9:37
Speaker 1: like you can walk by four different markets that exclusively
9:41
Speaker 1: sell plant based things and it's normal, and everyone that's
9:44
Speaker 1: going in there, they're not following a plant based diet.
9:46
Speaker 1: But there it's more readily accessible. Now it's just everywhere
9:50
Speaker 1: you go.
9:50
Speaker 2: It's an option, it really is. And the amount of
9:53
Speaker 2: options that you have today versus twenty years ago is
9:56
Speaker 2: night and day. Yeah, I mean I remember growing up,
9:58
Speaker 2: the closest we could get to plant base was a
10:00
Speaker 2: Chinese restaurant. Oh my god, yeah, because then you could
10:03
Speaker 2: have like the Buddhist feasts, ramen noodles and the fried rice,
10:08
Speaker 2: which obviously is not healthy, but to us it was
10:10
Speaker 2: better than you know, the alternative totally.
10:13
Speaker 1: So what kinds of things or stables in your diet
10:17
Speaker 1: in addition obviously to the things that you guys make
10:19
Speaker 1: at your company, but I mean for protein for instance,
10:22
Speaker 1: Like where are you getting your protein from if you're
10:24
Speaker 1: eating a plant based diet?
10:26
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, I mean I'm not the type
10:27
Speaker 2: of guy that focuses on my protein intake, and I'm
10:31
Speaker 2: certainly not counting grams. So my philosophy with food is
10:35
Speaker 2: the first of all, always make sure that it resembles
10:37
Speaker 2: as much of its original source or its original form, right,
10:42
Speaker 2: So that means all fruits, whole nuts, all vegetables. I
10:46
Speaker 2: try to avoid anything that comes out of a box,
10:48
Speaker 2: a bag, or a can. So that's first of all,
10:52
Speaker 2: really really important criteria. Now as far as far as
10:54
Speaker 2: protein is concerned, again, because I don't really count grams,
10:58
Speaker 2: I'm just making sure that everything I eat is balanced,
11:00
Speaker 2: meaning I'm not eating too much starch or too much fat,
11:04
Speaker 2: or even too much protein. I mean you can certainly
11:07
Speaker 2: overdo it essentially, or especially in a plant based diet
11:10
Speaker 2: where you just default to like a lot of tofu,
11:12
Speaker 2: a lot of tempe, all of that, which again, yes
11:16
Speaker 2: that's plant based, but then you have a different problem
11:17
Speaker 2: in your hands because you have a lot of soy, right,
11:20
Speaker 2: So I mean I try to be creative with what
11:22
Speaker 2: I consume. I do do like an oatmeal that instead
11:28
Speaker 2: of using like milk or water, I'll use actually or
11:30
Speaker 2: the vegan version of or Gain, which is again a
11:33
Speaker 2: plant based protein shake that resembles a lot like milk,
11:37
Speaker 2: and it's flavor and texture, So I'll use that in
11:40
Speaker 2: my oatmeal. So I'm getting now my carbohydrates and fiber
11:43
Speaker 2: from the oatmeal, but I'm also getting protein.
11:44
Speaker 1: Got it.
11:45
Speaker 2: I love smoothies, so I do, like you know, pea
11:48
Speaker 2: protein or hemp protein and stuff like that. And then
11:52
Speaker 2: whole grains, whole lagoons not so those are also great
11:55
Speaker 2: sources of protein. Got it.
11:56
Speaker 1: Okay, So let's rewind back again. You're making gumboo at
12:00
Speaker 1: home with your parents. You're eating plant based and vegetarian
12:04
Speaker 1: and vegan as well. Yes, And I can only imagine
12:09
Speaker 1: how difficult it's got to be to see someone that
12:12
Speaker 1: you care about so much struggling, like your mother was struggling.
12:15
Speaker 1: How is that like for you?
12:17
Speaker 2: Well, my mother's situation was really interesting because she had
12:21
Speaker 2: been drinking kombucha for two years, looked great, felt great,
12:25
Speaker 2: everything was great. Right. It wasn't until she thought she
12:30
Speaker 2: was pregnant that she went to go see the doctors.
12:33
Speaker 2: And so she saw the doctor and he was like, well,
12:36
Speaker 2: you're not pregnant, however, there is something growing inside you.
12:40
Speaker 2: And they said it's a very large tumor. We believe
12:43
Speaker 2: it's cancers. It's in your right breast, and it's about
12:45
Speaker 2: the size of a golf ball.
12:46
Speaker 1: Oh wow.
12:47
Speaker 2: So that was the first time where things took a
12:49
Speaker 2: turn for the worst. Now that's why my call it,
12:53
Speaker 2: my calling to make kimbucha felt so strong. Is that
12:56
Speaker 2: you know again, up to that point, my parents were
12:58
Speaker 2: drinking kombucha somewhat reck creationally. They did believe it was
13:01
Speaker 2: healthy for him, for them, but they didn't really understand
13:03
Speaker 2: how extensively. It wasn't until two weeks after my mother's
13:08
Speaker 2: initial diagnosis that the doctors themselves brought my mom in
13:12
Speaker 2: and essentially inquired on what she was doing different in
13:15
Speaker 2: her diet, because although she did have breast cancer, the
13:18
Speaker 2: tumor that they eventually diagnosed was primarily pre cancerous and
13:22
Speaker 2: hadn't spread to her lymph nodes. So that was really
13:25
Speaker 2: impressive to them, especially because they believed that she had
13:28
Speaker 2: already had the cancer for about four years.
13:30
Speaker 1: Wow.
13:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, So that was that moment that was like, all right, something,
13:35
Speaker 2: something's up right. And that's when kombucha kind of came
13:38
Speaker 2: to the forefront of is this uniquely tasting and smelling
13:42
Speaker 2: tea playing a positive role and keeping mom healthy. So
13:46
Speaker 2: to be honest, from my mother's so, the initial diagnosis
13:49
Speaker 2: was very gloomin do him as I said, because they
13:52
Speaker 2: thought the cancer was very large. They thought she had
13:54
Speaker 2: it for a very large long time. They were convinced
13:56
Speaker 2: it had spread to her bone, marrow, blah blah blah.
13:59
Speaker 2: But then two weeks later they found out that wasn't
14:02
Speaker 2: the case. So that's when things actually got better. So
14:04
Speaker 2: my mom's battle wasn't as grim as most people are,
14:08
Speaker 2: to be honest, what changed me was, ironically, about a
14:12
Speaker 2: year and a half after my mother's success beating breast
14:16
Speaker 2: cancer was when my brother, who was only twenty two
14:19
Speaker 2: years old, was also diagnosed with cancer. So that's the
14:23
Speaker 2: weird part because again with my mom, in my mind,
14:27
Speaker 2: you're seeing both sides of the spectrum, because my mom
14:29
Speaker 2: was this cancer patient that you had a bad story,
14:34
Speaker 2: and then it turned positive and the outcome was wonderful.
14:37
Speaker 2: She overcame it. She was healthy, she was fit, lessons
14:40
Speaker 2: learned on how to process stress and all of that.
14:43
Speaker 2: My brother, on the other hand, was diagnosed and it
14:46
Speaker 2: was only bad from there. And the reason why this
14:48
Speaker 2: is important is my brother was in the household and
14:51
Speaker 2: I was now making my kombucha. So we were a
14:54
Speaker 2: big family, right There was three boys, my mother, and
14:56
Speaker 2: my father, and we all lived there. And so I
14:59
Speaker 2: was making the bucha in the household where everybody lived.
15:02
Speaker 2: And shortly after I started making it, my brother was
15:05
Speaker 2: then diagnosed, but he didn't survive. He died six months later.
15:09
Speaker 2: So from the time of his diagnosis to the final
15:12
Speaker 2: day that he passed, I was able to first hand
15:14
Speaker 2: witness his death process while I'm making kombucha, because it
15:19
Speaker 2: was all happening in the same household. So you had
15:21
Speaker 2: imagined this. You have this beautiful experience of this young kid,
15:25
Speaker 2: because I was only about sixteen years old, maybe seventeen
15:28
Speaker 2: at the time, giving birth to this beautiful idea that
15:31
Speaker 2: he felt helped his mom, could help others, and was
15:33
Speaker 2: really really excited by it. But twenty feet on the
15:37
Speaker 2: other side of the house, you have someone who's similar
15:39
Speaker 2: in age twenty two, who is actually having the life
15:43
Speaker 2: pulled out of him and just really just wants to
15:46
Speaker 2: live and survive. And you to see that that just
15:50
Speaker 2: the position of those two things was really ingrained in me,
15:55
Speaker 2: like it left a very strong imprint on me then
15:58
Speaker 2: and remains now of just like understand the meaning of life,
16:01
Speaker 2: as cheesy as that sounds, yeah, and making sure every
16:03
Speaker 2: day we live we live to the fullest. So it
16:04
Speaker 2: certainly inspired me again to continue to do something with
16:07
Speaker 2: kombucha because it very much felt like my purpose.
16:10
Speaker 1: That must have been really tough to lose your brother.
16:12
Speaker 2: It was, and as odd as it sounds, it was
16:15
Speaker 2: kind of a blessing and a curse. Right. So the
16:17
Speaker 2: curse is obviously losing a loved one of any kind
16:20
Speaker 2: is very very hard, right, But the reason why I
16:23
Speaker 2: like to also interpret it as a blessing is that
16:25
Speaker 2: I think, you know, the greatest challenge I think a
16:27
Speaker 2: lot of people face is that they don't understand their mortality.
16:31
Speaker 2: And what I mean by that is especially when you're young.
16:33
Speaker 2: And I'll define young as even forty and younger or
16:36
Speaker 2: thirty and younger. It doesn't have to be like five
16:38
Speaker 2: or ten years old, right, right, But basically, in my mind,
16:41
Speaker 2: I noticed a lot of people feel that they don't
16:44
Speaker 2: need to be urgent with the things that they do.
16:47
Speaker 2: They don't have to have a sense of urgency. They
16:48
Speaker 2: feel the time is on their side. They want to
16:51
Speaker 2: live life. You know, you hear those sayings like you
16:53
Speaker 2: only live once, live it up, you know all that stuff. Yeah,
16:57
Speaker 2: and I certainly used to hear that a lot when
16:59
Speaker 2: I was a kid. But when you see somebody your
17:02
Speaker 2: own age die and die so quickly and so unexpectedly,
17:06
Speaker 2: it completely changes your point of view. Like you literally
17:08
Speaker 2: see every minute, every hour, and certainly every day as
17:12
Speaker 2: a gift.
17:13
Speaker 1: Was it frustrating for you to know that kombucha, as
17:16
Speaker 1: according to the doctors, probably played a really good role
17:21
Speaker 1: in your mother's success and then not being able to
17:24
Speaker 1: help your brother in the same way.
17:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, I actually found it ironic but yet insightful at
17:30
Speaker 2: the same time. Right, And what I mean by that
17:33
Speaker 2: is there's no one thing in this world that you
17:35
Speaker 2: can do and it will be your saving grace. You know,
17:37
Speaker 2: whether it's kimbucha or something else that is healthy, it
17:40
Speaker 2: has to be part of an overall healthy diet. So
17:43
Speaker 2: to be honest, my brother didn't drink kombucha, and in fact,
17:46
Speaker 2: he did the like my mom was athletic, plant based
17:50
Speaker 2: all of that. My brother actually kind of fell off
17:52
Speaker 2: the vegetarian wagon early on, so he was eating meat. Yeah,
17:56
Speaker 2: and he was, I mean I remember to this day
17:58
Speaker 2: he consumed a heavy diet of like microwaved frozen food.
18:03
Speaker 2: And the reason why earth that kind of stands out
18:05
Speaker 2: in my mind is I remember I'd be making kombucha
18:07
Speaker 2: and I'd have my batches lined up in the kitchen,
18:10
Speaker 2: getting ready to kind of put them to bed. And
18:13
Speaker 2: what does that mean? Well, that means you're going to
18:15
Speaker 2: start the fermentation. So you've made your base tea, you
18:18
Speaker 2: put your culture in it, you're covering it, which is
18:20
Speaker 2: kind of like tucking it in, and then you put
18:22
Speaker 2: it in a nice, quiet, warm spot for from mine
18:26
Speaker 2: for thirty days, but some people will do it for
18:28
Speaker 2: like ten or fourteen. Got it So anyway, so I
18:30
Speaker 2: was getting ready to do that, and then my brother
18:32
Speaker 2: would come in and start microwaving his food, and what
18:35
Speaker 2: I would notice is all my cultures that were floating
18:38
Speaker 2: nice and happily at the top of the tea all sank.
18:43
Speaker 1: Interesting.
18:43
Speaker 2: And what it is is I believe the radiation, right,
18:46
Speaker 2: radiation in the microwave not only radiates you know, several
18:49
Speaker 2: feet around the actual microwave, but also it radiates your food.
18:53
Speaker 2: So I believe that my brother one of the many
18:55
Speaker 2: things that I think he had an issue was is
18:57
Speaker 2: a high diet and call it radiated food. Like I said,
19:01
Speaker 2: he didn't drinkombucha, he was eating meat. He was kind
19:04
Speaker 2: of on a somewhat self destructive path, and honestly, I
19:06
Speaker 2: think that's why the universe gave him cancer, as it
19:09
Speaker 2: really was a wake up call. Not to bore you
19:12
Speaker 2: with the details, but I think the happy ending to
19:15
Speaker 2: my brother's passing is those six months of his life
19:17
Speaker 2: where he was stripped of everything that at the time
19:20
Speaker 2: he felt was important money, girls, cars, parties. Instead, he
19:25
Speaker 2: was stripped of all that and just became a very humble,
19:28
Speaker 2: grateful soul. And as silly as it sounds, I think
19:31
Speaker 2: he burned through a lot of karma and perhaps you know,
19:34
Speaker 2: depending on what you believe in, let's just say I
19:37
Speaker 2: believe is after the afterlife for him is going to
19:39
Speaker 2: be more good than bad. Yeah.
19:41
Speaker 1: Wow, what an interesting a perspective to have on all
19:44
Speaker 1: of it. When does this shift from just something you
19:47
Speaker 1: were doing at home to something that you thought you
19:50
Speaker 1: should start sharing with more and more people.
19:53
Speaker 2: You know what's funny is when I started to drink
19:56
Speaker 2: Kombucha's when I first noticed that it needed to be shared.
20:00
Speaker 2: People need to have it in their lives. At the
20:02
Speaker 2: same time, I was noticing that the way kombucha at
20:04
Speaker 2: the time was getting shared was, Hey, here's a culture,
20:09
Speaker 2: here's the recipe. Good luck. Yeah, right, that was basically it.
20:12
Speaker 1: Or does one even get a culture.
20:14
Speaker 2: You typically get it from a friend. It's almost like this,
20:17
Speaker 2: and that's what that's the beauty of kombucha. And that's
20:19
Speaker 2: why it's been held so sacred for so long as
20:21
Speaker 2: it was never this thing of commerce or commercial trade.
20:25
Speaker 2: It was really like, Hey, this is my little pet
20:29
Speaker 2: that just had a baby, and I'm going to give
20:30
Speaker 2: you a baby, and I'm going to tell you how
20:32
Speaker 2: to take care of the baby, so then you will
20:34
Speaker 2: have your own family, right, And so I mean essentially
20:37
Speaker 2: it gets passed from household a household, generation generation, friend,
20:40
Speaker 2: a friend, lover to lover fill in the blank. So
20:44
Speaker 2: that's how you learn about kombucha. And so you know,
20:46
Speaker 2: my parents certainly virtually immediately fell in love with kombucha
20:50
Speaker 2: and started to talk to everybody about how it made
20:53
Speaker 2: them feel and all of that, and they would give
20:54
Speaker 2: away cultures. And so I would notice this, and this
20:56
Speaker 2: is even before I started drinking kombucha.
20:58
Speaker 1: Right.
20:59
Speaker 2: What I also noticed is that nine out of ten
21:01
Speaker 2: times people would come back and be like, oh, yeah,
21:04
Speaker 2: my batch didn't come out good, and my baby my
21:08
Speaker 2: mother culture didn't have a baby culture, or my batch
21:11
Speaker 2: got moldy or it turned it tasted weird or whatever.
21:15
Speaker 2: And so to me, that was an early cueue that
21:17
Speaker 2: these relatively sophisticated people didn't understand fermentation interesting, and that's
21:22
Speaker 2: when I've been was compelled to put it in a
21:24
Speaker 2: ready to drink form so people could bypass the make
21:27
Speaker 2: it yourself step and just enjoy it and be healthy.
21:30
Speaker 1: Let's talk a little bit about, uh, it being a
21:34
Speaker 1: live beverage, because I think that people get really confused
21:37
Speaker 1: by that. So when someone picked like, what does that mean?
21:40
Speaker 1: Tell tell me what that means.
21:42
Speaker 2: Absolutely, So, you know, and that's a great question, and
21:46
Speaker 2: thank you for asking it. So, first of all, when
21:48
Speaker 2: I started making kombucha, kombucho was very much like raw
21:51
Speaker 2: applesider vinegar. You know, it was supposed it's supposed to
21:55
Speaker 2: have a very bright and bold flavor. Whether you call
21:59
Speaker 2: it hanging, whether you call it sour, whether you call
22:02
Speaker 2: it vinegary, fill in the blank. But it's supposed to
22:04
Speaker 2: have that bright flavor because that's actually an indication of
22:07
Speaker 2: the fermentation and the organic acids, which is one of
22:10
Speaker 2: the many things that makes it so healthy. In addition,
22:13
Speaker 2: it's supposed to have these visible cultures a lot like
22:16
Speaker 2: the mother culture in raw apple's head of vinegar. And
22:19
Speaker 2: last but not least, it has a naturally occurring efforvescence,
22:22
Speaker 2: which means sometimes you can have a bottle that's flat,
22:24
Speaker 2: sometimes you can have a bottle that's lightly fizzy or
22:28
Speaker 2: mildly fizzy, and then something that's very, very fizzy, And
22:30
Speaker 2: that's honestly the beauty of kombucha. Now cut to today,
22:34
Speaker 2: what you're seeing, unfortunately, is what we call the bastardization
22:38
Speaker 2: of kombucha. And what's happening is companies are taking essentially
22:42
Speaker 2: a vinegar that they've likely pasteurized, and they throw it
22:44
Speaker 2: in a water base with maybe a tea flavor or
22:48
Speaker 2: some juice, and then they artificially carbonate it, throw on
22:50
Speaker 2: some probiotics, and slap on a label and call it kombucha.
22:53
Speaker 2: And that's a problem because for people who truly are
22:56
Speaker 2: seeking authentic kombucha and certainly deserve authentic kombucha, more often
23:00
Speaker 2: than not aren't getting it right. And so that's really
23:03
Speaker 2: my mission. As you know, I've said before that I
23:05
Speaker 2: spent the last twenty years of my career kind of
23:10
Speaker 2: discovering kombucha and sharing it with others, and the next
23:12
Speaker 2: twenty years is going to be kind of protecting it.
23:14
Speaker 2: Got it?
23:15
Speaker 1: So you know that you want to share this with people?
23:17
Speaker 2: Yes?
23:18
Speaker 1: When does that I want to share this with people
23:20
Speaker 1: turn into I'm going to start bottling this to sell it?
23:25
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah. Honestly, it was a very simple called discussion
23:30
Speaker 2: that happened. So I'd say shortly after my mother got
23:35
Speaker 2: the good news that from her doctors that kombucha potentially
23:39
Speaker 2: helped her. I didn't cure her, but helped her throughout
23:41
Speaker 2: her battle with breast cancer. I noticed my friends and
23:45
Speaker 2: family members also fell in love with kombucha, and then
23:48
Speaker 2: I subsequently fell in love with kombucha. So that kind
23:51
Speaker 2: of trio of events is what then forced me essentially
23:56
Speaker 2: to go to my parents and said, mom, Dad, kombucha's
23:59
Speaker 2: very special. You guys need to do something with it.
24:02
Speaker 2: And that's when my parents turned that idea back on
24:05
Speaker 2: me and said, son, that's a big deal. We don't
24:08
Speaker 2: have the time. Why don't you do it? Yeah, And
24:10
Speaker 2: honestly they were half serious, yeah, but I took it
24:13
Speaker 2: as full serious. And I was at a very unique
24:16
Speaker 2: point in my life. I was just fifteen years old,
24:17
Speaker 2: I dropped out of Beverly Hills High School. There's a
24:19
Speaker 2: whole story there that I won't bore you with, but
24:22
Speaker 2: long story short, I was just in a very unique
24:25
Speaker 2: position to take on risk but without it feeling like risk,
24:28
Speaker 2: and leading with my heart and pursuing it and so
24:32
Speaker 2: literally that next day I started making it, and I
24:35
Speaker 2: started bottling it, and I approached erewon the local health
24:38
Speaker 2: food store, and that was it. There was no like
24:40
Speaker 2: I'm going to map out a business plan, you know,
24:43
Speaker 2: here's my three to five year goals or whatever. It
24:46
Speaker 2: was just like, I love this, I can make it.
24:49
Speaker 2: I'm going to bottle it and see who else loves it.
24:51
Speaker 1: Okay, So then talk to me about when the other
24:54
Speaker 1: things kind of come into play that are obviously so
24:57
Speaker 1: important to bottling and distributing the like this. I mean,
25:00
Speaker 1: you obviously needed to think about labeling, about how it
25:04
Speaker 1: looked on the shelf, about eventually, I mean getting to
25:07
Speaker 1: a size that it would be everywhere, Like you know,
25:11
Speaker 1: there's a lot, there's a lot to take into consideration here,
25:13
Speaker 1: It's true.
25:14
Speaker 2: And you know what, in retrospect, I think what I
25:17
Speaker 2: was doing was somewhat kind of naive and foolish. But
25:22
Speaker 2: having said that, it also protected me because what happened
25:24
Speaker 2: was is I was too young to be preoccupied with
25:28
Speaker 2: the call it the pressure of the stress of like
25:30
Speaker 2: my label has to be like the best ever, or
25:32
Speaker 2: my marketing asked me the best ever. I didn't really
25:34
Speaker 2: even understand those terms. So where I was coming from,
25:37
Speaker 2: is this kombucha help my mom? I love it. I
25:42
Speaker 2: want to just essentially bottle that experience and put it
25:46
Speaker 2: in the hands of others and then what will be
25:48
Speaker 2: will be. And that's exactly what I did. And in
25:51
Speaker 2: addition to that, I grew my eventual business and continue
25:56
Speaker 2: to very delicately, thoughtfully and certainly very organic.
26:00
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, now you have more than is it
26:03
Speaker 1: thirty flavors? Yeah, more than three more than thirty flavors. Yeah,
26:07
Speaker 1: that's a lot.
26:07
Speaker 2: It is a lot. And believe me, when I first started,
26:10
Speaker 2: I mean there was a good three years where I
26:12
Speaker 2: had like two flavors.
26:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, what were that?
26:14
Speaker 2: It was original and lemonade and the ginger aid was
26:18
Speaker 2: my third and today it's our best seller. And it
26:21
Speaker 2: was that moment of like where you feel like you
26:23
Speaker 2: just kind of strike gold. You have the perfect balance
26:26
Speaker 2: of you know, the health benefits of kombucha and they
26:29
Speaker 2: also the health benefits of ginger, and when you marry
26:31
Speaker 2: those two you had this like magical experience. And that
26:34
Speaker 2: was case in point of if you put a lot
26:36
Speaker 2: of thought into how you call it, curate, a beverage
26:40
Speaker 2: or curate even any kind of offering, it really excites
26:43
Speaker 2: people and then they flip for it.
26:45
Speaker 1: Yeah, totally. So you mentioned the health benefits of kombucha, Yes,
26:49
Speaker 1: let's talk about those absolutely.
26:51
Speaker 2: So. The beauty of kombucha, as I said earlier, is
26:53
Speaker 2: it's very similar to an adaptogenic and what that means
26:57
Speaker 2: is unlike a drug or something like that where they say,
26:59
Speaker 2: hey take this, you'll feel that kimbuch is more like,
27:03
Speaker 2: hey take this, and through it working with your body
27:06
Speaker 2: to detoxify and more store balance, you'll notice overall improvement
27:11
Speaker 2: in your well being and that can translate into more energy,
27:15
Speaker 2: better sleeping, clearer skin, clearer eyes, brighter hair, you know,
27:20
Speaker 2: stronger nails, certainly a better digestion. That's what a lot
27:24
Speaker 2: of people say, I think in this world that's probably
27:27
Speaker 2: the most important right now, because our bodies are so
27:29
Speaker 2: bombarded with antibiotics and pesticides and just call it stress.
27:33
Speaker 2: That everything starts in the gut, and if you don't
27:36
Speaker 2: have a good digestive system or you know, microbiome, you
27:39
Speaker 2: could be in trouble. So kimbucha really focuses on that.
27:44
Speaker 2: And then what happens is and this is kind of
27:46
Speaker 2: the romantic story that we like to tell, is it
27:49
Speaker 2: in a way kimbucha kind of changes the way you
27:52
Speaker 2: see food, right, we joke half joking and say it
27:55
Speaker 2: kind of opens up your third eye. And what I
27:57
Speaker 2: mean by that is, you know, when you consume kombuchaly,
28:00
Speaker 2: for most people, it tastes very vinegreen, It tastes very
28:03
Speaker 2: kind of harsh. But if you can stick with it
28:05
Speaker 2: and even just get through your first bottle, you notice
28:08
Speaker 2: that the next time you reach for it, it tastes sweeter,
28:11
Speaker 2: and the next time that you go reach for a
28:13
Speaker 2: soda or something really processed that actually tastes gross. Yeah,
28:18
Speaker 2: So what we mean by that is it kind of
28:20
Speaker 2: remakes your palate and it opens up the dialogue between
28:25
Speaker 2: you and your body and you start to hear your
28:27
Speaker 2: body say hey, I don't want that. Hey, that doesn't
28:30
Speaker 2: make me feel good. So we notice more often than
28:33
Speaker 2: not with people who start drinking kombucha, and of course
28:35
Speaker 2: specifically ours, is that they say, hey, this has changed
28:39
Speaker 2: my life, like I'm eating different, I'm drinking different, I'm
28:42
Speaker 2: living differently. Yeah, and it's it's as silly as it sounds,
28:45
Speaker 2: kind of like an awakening.
28:47
Speaker 1: Like I'm sure when people that were either close to you,
28:50
Speaker 1: close to you or fans of GTS, when they picked
28:53
Speaker 1: up their first bottle, they didn't instantly feel like a
28:56
Speaker 1: completely different human.
28:57
Speaker 2: Of course, that's some people had to run to the bathroom. Yeah, yeah,
29:00
Speaker 2: some people, you know, they spit it out. I mean,
29:04
Speaker 2: not every first experience with kombucha is a positive one. However,
29:08
Speaker 2: every experience with kombucha at least is a memorable one,
29:12
Speaker 2: and that means that, like you really can tell it's
29:14
Speaker 2: something different. Yeah and so yeah, so I think a
29:17
Speaker 2: lot of people that's one of the reasons why they
29:19
Speaker 2: resonate with it. But to your point, absolutely, I mean,
29:22
Speaker 2: when I started making kombucha, I became enamored with this
29:26
Speaker 2: wonderful world and not only fermented foods, but also these raw,
29:28
Speaker 2: living plant based foods. So call it from year one
29:32
Speaker 2: to year probably four and even five, I was on
29:35
Speaker 2: this intense, intense health diet and I was raw, I
29:39
Speaker 2: was vegan, I was all this stuff, and I was
29:43
Speaker 2: amazed with how deep you can go in health and wellness.
29:46
Speaker 2: But of course certain extreme behaviors aren't good. I mean
29:50
Speaker 2: I noticed when I was raw and vegan, it was
29:53
Speaker 2: great for the summer because it's warm, and my body
29:55
Speaker 2: loved like the cool fresh vegetables and the cool fresh fruit.
29:58
Speaker 2: But as soon as winter came, like I got cold, yeah,
30:01
Speaker 2: and my body was craving warm food things that were
30:05
Speaker 2: big things that were you know, sauteed whatever. And so
30:08
Speaker 2: the point that I'm saying is is that I don't
30:10
Speaker 2: think there's any singular approach to anyone thing, Like what
30:13
Speaker 2: works for you may not work for me. And that's
30:15
Speaker 2: in many ways what I think kombucha is so special
30:17
Speaker 2: as it kind of tells you to hate listen, listen
30:20
Speaker 2: to your body even when you drink kombucha, Like if
30:23
Speaker 2: I drink a bottle, you may only have to drink
30:25
Speaker 2: four or eight ounces and get the same result. Yeah.
30:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, And you mentioned eating raw that has that. I
30:31
Speaker 1: tried that once. It was hard. It's hard, it is
30:36
Speaker 1: it's really you don't really I feel like you were
30:39
Speaker 1: very I was very I did not know how many
30:43
Speaker 1: things I was consuming that were not raw until I
30:45
Speaker 1: tried to eat only raw. I sat down with this
30:48
Speaker 1: guy who has a big name, uh with raw foods,
30:51
Speaker 1: spread bushi. He's based in Saten Island, and all the
30:54
Speaker 1: things he was telling me that I should eat like,
30:56
Speaker 1: I tried to eat them and I wasn't into it.
30:58
Speaker 1: And I was wrapping things in colored cream and it
31:00
Speaker 1: just wasn't my jam. And yeah, it was a lot.
31:03
Speaker 2: No, it's a lot, it's a lot.
31:05
Speaker 1: I feel like you've tried a lot of stuff, though,
31:07
Speaker 1: what would you say has been kind of one of
31:09
Speaker 1: the whacky I actually I asked Hayden Slater this. I
31:12
Speaker 1: asked him what was one of the craziest health trends
31:15
Speaker 1: he's tried, or like help anything he's tried in the
31:18
Speaker 1: last few years. I'm not going to tell you his
31:20
Speaker 1: answer until you tell me what your answer. What's your answer,
31:23
Speaker 1: I'm curious to hear his, So mine is.
31:25
Speaker 2: I mean, honestly, my parents raised me on stay away
31:29
Speaker 2: from anything that's a fad, right, So I actually never
31:32
Speaker 2: got on the Atkins or Ketosi's bandwagon. I've never really
31:37
Speaker 2: subscribed to a fully extreme diet. However, I think perhaps
31:42
Speaker 2: what's the exception to that statement is you and I
31:44
Speaker 2: actually talked about this previously. Is there was a time
31:47
Speaker 2: where I was like counting calories. Yeah, like a stick
31:50
Speaker 2: of gum. I recount the calories. And I think what
31:53
Speaker 2: happened was is, and this is what I'm saying about
31:55
Speaker 2: extreme behavior, is it all started off with like fully
31:58
Speaker 2: obsessing about what I put in my body, and then
32:01
Speaker 2: over to the point where I was overthinking it, where
32:03
Speaker 2: every single thing that went in my mouth had needed
32:06
Speaker 2: to have a purpose, and that for some reason translated
32:09
Speaker 2: into like calorie counting. And so what happened was I
32:12
Speaker 2: noticed that I became so obsessed with calorie intake that
32:16
Speaker 2: I started to consciously or unconsciously reduce my calorie intake.
32:19
Speaker 2: And so I started using a lot of artificial sweeteners,
32:22
Speaker 2: a lot of diet soda and diet drinks. And because
32:25
Speaker 2: of that nature, and I thought I was being healthy
32:27
Speaker 2: because to be honest, sometimes I was mixing it with
32:30
Speaker 2: health food, like I was making like a pumpkin sou
32:33
Speaker 2: fle that I read pumpkins a very rich and bring
32:36
Speaker 2: the caroteene. But I wanted to emulate like a pumpkin pie,
32:39
Speaker 2: but I didn't want the sugar. So I used like
32:41
Speaker 2: a ton of superlose or aspartame, and I thought, hey,
32:44
Speaker 2: as long as I need more of the pumpkin, it
32:46
Speaker 2: should not only wash itself out, but it should still
32:49
Speaker 2: be healthy. No. I noticed within the short period of time,
32:53
Speaker 2: like my body completely changed, Like I would wake up
32:55
Speaker 2: in the morning, in the middle of the night with
32:57
Speaker 2: like a severe food craving, sugar craving. I would binge
33:02
Speaker 2: eat it was it was like, honestly, there was like
33:04
Speaker 2: a fat boy inside me now that was trying to
33:07
Speaker 2: get out, when previously I had never felt that before, right, right,
33:10
Speaker 2: And what that was an interesting reminder was is that
33:13
Speaker 2: I just needed to pay more attention to kombucha and
33:16
Speaker 2: allow it to do to me what it used to
33:19
Speaker 2: do and not be so obsessed with this other stuff.
33:21
Speaker 2: So kombucha helped kind of put that in balance and
33:24
Speaker 2: helped fix those cravings. And now I'm pleased to say,
33:27
Speaker 2: like I'd never have felt that way again.
33:29
Speaker 1: Okay, So Hayden's answer is a lot more obscure than
33:31
Speaker 1: were Hayden tried leech therapy. I'm talking like tresh Oh, okay,
33:37
Speaker 1: because you live in Beverly Hills, people do weird things here.
33:40
Speaker 2: Yeah that's true. I mean I haven't. You know, it's
33:43
Speaker 2: so funny. I think because my work schedule, I haven't.
33:45
Speaker 2: Like my I have friends that do cupping.
33:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that's pretty PG.
33:50
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean I have friends that do like the
33:52
Speaker 2: p r P stuff, or they have their blood pulled
33:54
Speaker 2: out and it's like spawn and then like the plasma
33:57
Speaker 2: which is almost like your stem cell created, and then
34:00
Speaker 2: they like rub that on your face or they ingest
34:02
Speaker 2: it in you. All that stuff. I mean, I listen,
34:07
Speaker 2: I grew up in Bellar, Beverly Hills. Yeah, pretty much
34:09
Speaker 2: seen it all. Yeah. I've seen people put you know,
34:11
Speaker 2: plit sensa from all their babies into their veins. Oh,
34:16
Speaker 2: I mean I've seen all of that. I just haven't
34:18
Speaker 2: done it.
34:19
Speaker 1: Yeah.
34:19
Speaker 2: No, I mean to be honest, because like I'm a
34:22
Speaker 2: big believer in prevention. Prevention with things that nature is
34:25
Speaker 2: kind of offering, you know, injecting someone's placenta, you could
34:28
Speaker 2: you could argue that that's natural but it's not natural
34:31
Speaker 2: to you.
34:31
Speaker 1: It feels so weird.
34:32
Speaker 2: Yeah. I just like to take a lot of water, exercise,
34:36
Speaker 2: and eat really clean food.
34:37
Speaker 1: That's good. Yeah. Now, I sat down with Colleen quickly,
34:40
Speaker 1: she's a Sepule chaser. When she had a bad hamstring injury.
34:44
Speaker 1: She was telling me about how they spun her blood
34:46
Speaker 1: and then would put it back into her leg and
34:49
Speaker 1: I was like, Wow, that's how you know you're an
34:51
Speaker 1: elite level athlete if someone's going to just spin your
34:54
Speaker 1: blood and put it back in your body to make
34:56
Speaker 1: you better, even faster. Yeah, it's crazy.
34:59
Speaker 2: No, it is crazy.
35:00
Speaker 1: How does it feel to be known as the king
35:01
Speaker 1: of krom Butucha?
35:03
Speaker 2: I mean it feels great. It's a heavy crown to wear.
35:08
Speaker 2: And what I mean by that is, I think because
35:10
Speaker 2: health and wellness has become such a trend and a
35:14
Speaker 2: fad lately that I think everybody consciously or unconsciously sees
35:19
Speaker 2: all these products are somewhat new, right, And you know,
35:22
Speaker 2: I have people that you know, have been drinking kombucha
35:26
Speaker 2: that have only known about it for a couple of years.
35:29
Speaker 2: And what that creates, though, is you know, I've been
35:31
Speaker 2: doing this for over twenty three years. And you know,
35:34
Speaker 2: when I created my product and when I put it
35:37
Speaker 2: on the shelves, the landscape of the marketplace was very different.
35:42
Speaker 2: You know. At the time, what was considered cunning enje
35:44
Speaker 2: was tofu, what was considered a health beverage was so
35:47
Speaker 2: be invited and water. So the point that I'm trying
35:50
Speaker 2: to make is that you know, I've been given the
35:53
Speaker 2: title category creator, king of kombucha, all of that, which
35:56
Speaker 2: honestly I don't take for granted, and I'm honored it
35:59
Speaker 2: to get anything like that type of title. But I'd
36:02
Speaker 2: like to be more of a humble guy. But I
36:05
Speaker 2: think right now, in this day and age, especially with millennials,
36:08
Speaker 2: anything that's considered big or old, they kind of resist
36:12
Speaker 2: and they like the new, sparkly things, and so at
36:14
Speaker 2: times we're rather pigeonholed, as you know, the monopoly of kombucha,
36:19
Speaker 2: the Goliath of kombucha, and then therefore people just default
36:22
Speaker 2: to the smaller brands just because they're kind of anti
36:24
Speaker 2: big company, or people don't really understand our history, right
36:29
Speaker 2: right they think most people, as I said, have only
36:31
Speaker 2: heard kombucha a't the longest for five years. They don't
36:35
Speaker 2: understand for us there's nineteen more years before that, right,
36:38
Speaker 2: and there there was a day and age where there
36:40
Speaker 2: wasn't a Whole Foods. You know, when I started in
36:43
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty five, Whole Foods didn't exist. You know, there
36:46
Speaker 2: was a time where you know, right now, you can
36:47
Speaker 2: buy kombucha in seven to eleven, You can buy it
36:49
Speaker 2: at Costco. As you just said, you can buy it
36:51
Speaker 2: and trade to Joe's. There was a time where I
36:53
Speaker 2: was trying to get in those stores and they slammed
36:56
Speaker 2: the door on my face. And not only did they
36:58
Speaker 2: do that, but they also said, hey, what you're making
37:01
Speaker 2: is disgusting, and what you're making will get people sick
37:04
Speaker 2: because it's fermented, and fermentation is synonymous with rot and spoilage.
37:11
Speaker 2: And so you know, at the time, I only really
37:13
Speaker 2: had two options, give up or just put my head
37:16
Speaker 2: down and continue to pave this call it slow and
37:20
Speaker 2: steady path. Today, products that have kombucha on the label
37:25
Speaker 2: get in the store just because of that. So it's
37:27
Speaker 2: a very different world. So I can't say that I
37:30
Speaker 2: love that, because I think working hard and paying your
37:33
Speaker 2: dues creates character. I think a lot of the products
37:36
Speaker 2: this isn't even just in the kombucha space. I think
37:38
Speaker 2: a lot of the products in the marketplace right now
37:40
Speaker 2: really lack that integrity because they're all just kind of
37:43
Speaker 2: me too. They're jumping on the bandwagon and they're putting
37:46
Speaker 2: you know, vegan, plant based, gluten free kombucha whatever on
37:50
Speaker 2: the label, and it just they have success because that's
37:52
Speaker 2: the world we're living in right now. But I think
37:55
Speaker 2: it also brings in kind of bad players, right people
37:58
Speaker 2: who come in just to sell their company. I mean
38:00
Speaker 2: there's a lot of kombucha's in my space unfortunately that
38:03
Speaker 2: have Pepsi money, coke money, Nestli money, pize coffee and
38:08
Speaker 2: tea money, and not that that's a bad thing, but
38:10
Speaker 2: it's slowly changing the industry. Yeah, we're proud to say
38:13
Speaker 2: we're independent. We're still family owned. We don't have any
38:15
Speaker 2: big food money in our pockets and we plan on
38:18
Speaker 2: not changing that, right. We just hope that by others
38:21
Speaker 2: engaging in that behavior that it doesn't change the category
38:23
Speaker 2: for the worst.
38:32
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Speaker 1: com slash hurdle. Let's get back to it. I'm back
39:34
Speaker 1: here sitting with GT Dave. He's the founder and CEO
39:38
Speaker 1: of GT's Living Food. When does your company really start
39:41
Speaker 1: to upswig? Yeah, I mean take off. I mean when
39:45
Speaker 1: did you When did you move outside of your parent kitchen?
39:49
Speaker 2: Yeah? I would say, I mean almost every two to
39:51
Speaker 2: three years was a big growth spurt, and so certainly
39:55
Speaker 2: when I first started making kombuchos in my parents' kitchen
39:58
Speaker 2: for about two years. Be honest, what was the genesis
40:01
Speaker 2: or the impetus of me moving out. It was my
40:03
Speaker 2: parents were splitting up, and that was after the death
40:05
Speaker 2: of my brother that definitely shook up their marriage and
40:07
Speaker 2: certainly the household. So it was their breakup, if you will,
40:11
Speaker 2: that forced me and my business out of the house.
40:13
Speaker 2: So that's when I got my first commercial facility in Guardina, California.
40:18
Speaker 2: I was in that facility for gosh, probably about five years,
40:22
Speaker 2: maybe even six, and every two or three years I'd
40:26
Speaker 2: have to take over the unit next door. So just
40:29
Speaker 2: to back up, when I first moved into my first
40:31
Speaker 2: commercial facility, it was an industrial complex. There was a
40:33
Speaker 2: lot of these like little units back to back to back,
40:36
Speaker 2: and I occupied one, and then two to three years
40:39
Speaker 2: later I needed to cut a hole in the wall
40:40
Speaker 2: and occupy the second, and then the third, and then
40:43
Speaker 2: the fourth, and so I was growing rapidly again almost
40:46
Speaker 2: every two to three years. It wasn't until two thousand
40:49
Speaker 2: and five, so a good ten years later after I
40:53
Speaker 2: started where we went nationwide. I moved into a giant
40:57
Speaker 2: facility which at the time fell giant, and that's when
41:01
Speaker 2: like people were really getting it. That's when people were
41:04
Speaker 2: traveling from California to New York and going crazy for
41:08
Speaker 2: trying to get kombucha in Manhattan. And that was again
41:11
Speaker 2: the impetus from me becoming nationwidek So that was a
41:14
Speaker 2: huge moment. Ironically, then it took another ten years for kombucha,
41:20
Speaker 2: in my opinion, to hit critical acclaim and mass appeal,
41:23
Speaker 2: and that's twenty fifteen is when you started to see
41:26
Speaker 2: the adoption of kombucha in more mainstream markets, the Kroger's,
41:31
Speaker 2: which Jones, Ralph's here in Los Angeles. The safe way
41:33
Speaker 2: is the costcos, the Trader Joe's, and ironically the targets
41:37
Speaker 2: and the Walmarts. I mean when I first started, first
41:40
Speaker 2: of all, I've only been in Walmart like twice in
41:42
Speaker 2: my life. So yeah, Walmart here somewhere here, I mean
41:46
Speaker 2: not like in Beverly Hills are right now, not currently,
41:54
Speaker 2: So that's the thing. So it never in my wildest
41:57
Speaker 2: dreams did I ever think that my product would be
41:59
Speaker 2: sold in a Walmart, aren't ye? Because I always saw
42:01
Speaker 2: Walmart as an area that more for the cokes and
42:03
Speaker 2: the pepsis of the world, right, But the fact that
42:05
Speaker 2: my kombucha is sold into Walmart is a case in
42:07
Speaker 2: point that the world as we know it is changing.
42:09
Speaker 2: It has changed for the better in many ways. So
42:13
Speaker 2: that's very exciting. And again, twenty fifteen is when I
42:17
Speaker 2: think from two thousand and five to twenty fifteen, kombucha
42:21
Speaker 2: became a household name in the natural world.
42:23
Speaker 1: Right.
42:23
Speaker 2: From twenty fifteen to now, it's slowly becoming a household
42:26
Speaker 2: name in everyone's world right, Right. You're still far from
42:29
Speaker 2: like it being synonymous like coconut water or things of
42:33
Speaker 2: that nature, where everybody's drinking it, because kombucha has more
42:35
Speaker 2: of a polarizing effect. But each day I think more
42:38
Speaker 2: and more people are understanding it and seeking it out.
42:40
Speaker 1: Where's the money coming from? Like when you're starting out
42:44
Speaker 1: and you're knocking down walls and you're slowly taking over
42:47
Speaker 1: and over and over, like where are you? Are you
42:50
Speaker 1: selling enough? Are you making a profit?
42:52
Speaker 2: Yeah? So I would say where the money comes from
42:54
Speaker 2: is blood, sweat and tears. And what I mean by
42:57
Speaker 2: that is, you know, for the first five years I
43:00
Speaker 2: I didn't pay myself, right, so I was fortunate to
43:04
Speaker 2: start my company so young that you know, I had
43:06
Speaker 2: something called mom and dad that you know, and I
43:10
Speaker 2: think the law that they had to take care of
43:11
Speaker 2: me at least until I was eighteen, So I had
43:14
Speaker 2: that relief. And you know, even afterwards, like again your
43:19
Speaker 2: four year five, it was just being very, very frugal,
43:23
Speaker 2: and you know, there's times, and I think this is
43:25
Speaker 2: common in most startups, is that everybody has a definition
43:28
Speaker 2: of like I made it, and sometimes I made it. It's
43:30
Speaker 2: just I have a ten thousand dollars order. And what
43:34
Speaker 2: I've noticed and did experience when I was much younger,
43:36
Speaker 2: is you sometimes have that success then you want to
43:39
Speaker 2: like celebrate. But I recognize luckily early enough that hey,
43:44
Speaker 2: like just because you got that big win, tuck it
43:48
Speaker 2: away and keep going, like, don't celebrate it, don't spend it.
43:51
Speaker 2: Don't think that alsoiden you're king of the world, because
43:53
Speaker 2: that's where I think a lot of business owners make mistakes.
43:56
Speaker 2: To answer your question, I just saved a lot.
43:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. And then what about like your first hire.
44:02
Speaker 2: My first hire felt more like a date than an interview.
44:05
Speaker 2: I was like, so what's your sign? You know, like,
44:09
Speaker 2: what do you do for fun? What's your diet?
44:11
Speaker 1: Like?
44:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know kids, or what are your parents like?
44:13
Speaker 2: Because you know, I was really raised to be very
44:15
Speaker 2: very thoughtful and very intimate. And yeah, when you connect
44:19
Speaker 2: with somebody, like genuinely connected them, like understand what makes
44:23
Speaker 2: them tick and again, and this is primarily because of
44:26
Speaker 2: my mother. My mom is very big into astrology and
44:30
Speaker 2: she sees that as at times people's kind of blueprint
44:33
Speaker 2: of their soul. And so, to answer your question, so
44:36
Speaker 2: when that first candidate came into the door, I mean
44:38
Speaker 2: I sat down with him and it was like we
44:40
Speaker 2: were getting married. I mean I was just everything about yourself,
44:43
Speaker 2: your host streams, your wishes, what position were you hiring for?
44:47
Speaker 2: It was a brewer, so he was just going to
44:49
Speaker 2: come in and brew the tea, add the culture to
44:52
Speaker 2: the small batch, and then just let it ferment, and
44:55
Speaker 2: then he would help me bottle it afterwards. Got it
44:57
Speaker 2: the bottling I did primarily because in my mind that
45:00
Speaker 2: was where is the culmination of everything, the raw kombucha
45:03
Speaker 2: with the raw juice. Yeah, and the recipe is kind
45:06
Speaker 2: of somewhere there, but yeah, so he helped me do
45:08
Speaker 2: that and it was great. And Employe number two three, four,
45:12
Speaker 2: and beyond all become that way where it's really you're
45:15
Speaker 2: trying to create.
45:15
Speaker 1: This family, right right, Okay, So the other thing about
45:19
Speaker 1: kombucha I would say is that it is pretty polarizing.
45:23
Speaker 1: I definitely followed the path that you mentioned earlier, which
45:27
Speaker 1: was you drink it at first and you're like, then
45:30
Speaker 1: you drink it again, you're like hmm, and then you
45:32
Speaker 1: drink it the third time you're like, I'm going to
45:33
Speaker 1: go get some of this next week, Like you're into it. Yeah,
45:35
Speaker 1: But some people never get to like the step four.
45:39
Speaker 1: What is your sticking point for the person that's like,
45:43
Speaker 1: kombucha is not really my thing? Like, what's the first
45:45
Speaker 1: thing you tell kombucha skeptic?
45:47
Speaker 2: Why tell them listen, give it a chance? Because first
45:50
Speaker 2: of all, just stop and think things that we consider normal.
45:53
Speaker 2: If you take a step back, perhaps isn't that normal
45:57
Speaker 2: and would be just as repulsive. So like the example
45:59
Speaker 2: I give, because some people are like, oh, I can't
46:02
Speaker 2: drink kombucha because that thing that's floating in it is
46:04
Speaker 2: so disgusting, And then I say do you eat meat?
46:07
Speaker 2: And then I say, uh, you know, did you ever
46:10
Speaker 2: stop and think that? There's times where you're just eating
46:12
Speaker 2: into the carcass of another living thing. I said that
46:15
Speaker 2: to me, that is so gross. That's what I say, like,
46:20
Speaker 2: I think everything is perspective, and you have to say, like,
46:22
Speaker 2: do you think drinking the breast milk of a cow
46:25
Speaker 2: is normal? And so then you just have to kind
46:28
Speaker 2: of give people perspective. And so that's how I overcome
46:32
Speaker 2: that it's weirdy hurdle the flavor aspect. I just say, hey, listen,
46:37
Speaker 2: if you first of all, we have other flavors that
46:39
Speaker 2: are more call it palatable, like our mango and our guava.
46:44
Speaker 1: Yes, so I'm a sucker for the guava.
46:46
Speaker 2: Thank you. And so we try to steer people in
46:49
Speaker 2: that direction, yeah, if we can. But if not, let's
46:53
Speaker 2: just say they have playing kombucha or there's more polarizing
46:56
Speaker 2: flavors at their fingertips. Would just say, hey, just start
46:58
Speaker 2: with two ounces, hold your nose, start with two ounces,
47:01
Speaker 2: and start it every day and just listen, like, notice
47:05
Speaker 2: that if maybe your stomach gets a little bit better,
47:07
Speaker 2: your headaches get a little bit better or whatever. And
47:10
Speaker 2: nine out of ten times, if not ten out of
47:11
Speaker 2: ten times, people go from two ounces to four ounces
47:14
Speaker 2: to eight ounces to a bottle to maybe a bottle
47:17
Speaker 2: or more a day. And that's honestly what happened to
47:19
Speaker 2: me when I first started drinking kombusha. I did not
47:22
Speaker 2: love it, Yeah, and it was one of those things
47:24
Speaker 2: where I did have to pinch my nose and drink it.
47:26
Speaker 2: But then my stomach ache would go away or not
47:29
Speaker 2: to get graphic, my regularity would get better. Yeah, all
47:32
Speaker 2: these things that we don't really talk about but we
47:34
Speaker 2: do personally notice and personally value start to improve. And
47:37
Speaker 2: I think that's really the selling pitch.
47:39
Speaker 1: How much are you drinking now?
47:42
Speaker 2: Well, I wouldn't recommend that people follow my intake because
47:45
Speaker 2: I'm a professional kombucha consumer. And what that means is
47:51
Speaker 2: I drink about a gallon into a gallon and a
47:53
Speaker 2: half a day, So I put that in bottles. That's
47:56
Speaker 2: like eight to twelve sixty ounce bottles a day.
47:59
Speaker 1: How much water do you drink every day?
48:01
Speaker 2: Luckily I drink a lot of water, So I drink.
48:04
Speaker 1: How is your whole day not spend.
48:05
Speaker 2: It in the bathroom? I mean, honestly, it is like
48:09
Speaker 2: every I I when I have meetings at work. If
48:12
Speaker 2: a meeting runs longer than an hour, like I grow
48:15
Speaker 2: horns and a tail, like I become so demonic because
48:19
Speaker 2: I have to go to the bathroom so badly.
48:22
Speaker 1: So good thing we're winding down, Yes, point making is
48:26
Speaker 1: rapid up.
48:28
Speaker 2: Wow.
48:28
Speaker 1: A gallon and a half?
48:30
Speaker 2: Yeah so yeah, So that's a gallon and a half
48:32
Speaker 2: of kombucha and a gallon and a half of water.
48:35
Speaker 1: Do you mix up the flavor situation? Do you drink
48:37
Speaker 1: one flavor?
48:38
Speaker 2: Well, I actually drink them all. So just to give
48:40
Speaker 2: you a little sneak peek into my daily life at work,
48:43
Speaker 2: is that you know, I come in and my first
48:45
Speaker 2: thing you do is I taste all the raw batches.
48:47
Speaker 2: So these are the batches that just got harvested, just
48:49
Speaker 2: had the culture removed, or essentially this effervescent tangy tea,
48:54
Speaker 2: and I taste that and a lot. The way I
48:56
Speaker 2: compare it is a lot like a two in a winery.
48:59
Speaker 2: How your seeing the different harvests of the wines, because
49:02
Speaker 2: each and everyone is a different personnelity, right, and then
49:05
Speaker 2: from there we create a blend. So every batch is different,
49:10
Speaker 2: even though they may come from the same master batch,
49:12
Speaker 2: but every small vessel has a different personality, very much
49:15
Speaker 2: like you could have an orange tree and the oranges
49:18
Speaker 2: at the top of the tree taste different than the
49:19
Speaker 2: oranges at the bottom of the tree. It's still the
49:21
Speaker 2: same tree though exactly so from there, so I taste that.
49:25
Speaker 2: And then when we start adding the fresh press juice
49:28
Speaker 2: and all of that, I taste them right after they've
49:30
Speaker 2: involved to make sure that they're crisp, they're bright, they're balanced,
49:33
Speaker 2: all of that. So through the math, you know, we
49:35
Speaker 2: have over thirty flavors. We run many many batches a day,
49:39
Speaker 2: so I'm taste tasting throughout the day. And the great
49:42
Speaker 2: news and this is kind of my testament to when
49:45
Speaker 2: people say, hey, can you drink too much? Like, I've
49:47
Speaker 2: been drinking this much for decades, right, and it's never
49:50
Speaker 2: turned on me. It's never made me feel sick. And
49:53
Speaker 2: if anything, it's one of the reasons why I'm able
49:56
Speaker 2: to work so hard, because it really does power me
49:57
Speaker 2: through my day. Now I recommend, you know, I don't
50:00
Speaker 2: recommend that people drink that much. I always tell people, hey,
50:02
Speaker 2: keep it cap it at three bottles a day, because
50:05
Speaker 2: you're drinking more than three, like you should probably be
50:07
Speaker 2: looking into other things, maybe more water or stuff like that.
50:11
Speaker 2: But yeah, I mean kombucha is a pretty miraculous thing.
50:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, And as we as we start to wind down here,
50:16
Speaker 1: I do want to just touch on quickly. We talked
50:18
Speaker 1: a little bit about gut health before, and I think
50:21
Speaker 1: that's something that a lot of people don't really understand
50:24
Speaker 1: or know much about. What has being involved in this
50:28
Speaker 1: industry and this specific product and all of these live cultures.
50:31
Speaker 1: What has it taught you about the importance of gut health.
50:36
Speaker 2: Well, several things it's taught me that you know. Again,
50:39
Speaker 2: the secret to a healthy gut is minimizing the processing
50:44
Speaker 2: that goes into your food. And the reason why fermented
50:47
Speaker 2: foods are so healthy on the gut is not just
50:49
Speaker 2: because they contain probiotics which assist in replenishing the gut
50:54
Speaker 2: health and the microbiome, but also fermented foods are considered
50:58
Speaker 2: pre digested. And what that means is like, for instance,
51:02
Speaker 2: a bowl of sour craft, which is essentially fermented vegetables,
51:06
Speaker 2: is easier to digest than a bowl of those exact
51:09
Speaker 2: same vegetables before they were fermented. And the reason is
51:12
Speaker 2: is that enzymes in fermentation break down things that sometimes
51:16
Speaker 2: can be hard on our bodies and sometimes impair our
51:19
Speaker 2: ability to absorb certain nutrients. So fermentation is almost like
51:25
Speaker 2: a predigestive state or stage that helps us and our
51:29
Speaker 2: bodies assimilate those nutrients. So that's step one. I mean, again,
51:35
Speaker 2: when you understand the honestly the lack of focus that
51:38
Speaker 2: in the modern world we put on our gut, I mean,
51:41
Speaker 2: there's so many things that we ingest that are not
51:43
Speaker 2: only not helping us, but are doing severe damage. Antibiotics, pesticides,
51:49
Speaker 2: things that have preservatives. I mean, what also is very
51:53
Speaker 2: enlightening is not just what I learned when making kombucha,
51:56
Speaker 2: but it's also what I learned when formulating a beverage.
51:59
Speaker 2: I mean, it's pretty remarkable that things at other companies,
52:02
Speaker 2: and not certainly suggesting kombucha companies, but just call it
52:05
Speaker 2: food and beverage companies, they'll add things to their products
52:10
Speaker 2: that seem clean, but have you know, weird words like
52:14
Speaker 2: emulsifier or whatever, which are coming from a very process source,
52:19
Speaker 2: and they're being used to make sure things don't settle,
52:23
Speaker 2: make sure the color doesn't change, make sure the flavor stays.
52:26
Speaker 2: But what happens is it's still very, very refined, and
52:29
Speaker 2: in my opinion, that's hurting your gut. Yeah. So that's
52:33
Speaker 2: just something that I think that we all need to
52:34
Speaker 2: pay more attention to, which is why I think staying
52:38
Speaker 2: on a very strict regimen of fermented foods is definitely essential.
52:42
Speaker 1: Interesting Okay, fermented foods, yes, yes, end of them all. Right. So, now,
52:48
Speaker 1: like I said, more than thirty flavors of kombucha in
52:50
Speaker 1: the portfolio as well as other foods.
52:54
Speaker 2: Yes.
52:54
Speaker 1: You look back on your career right now, what would
52:58
Speaker 1: you say has been one of the vast pieces of
53:01
Speaker 1: advice that's been offered to you?
53:04
Speaker 2: Wow? I mean I remember early on when I was starting,
53:09
Speaker 2: you know, as I said, I was starting to make
53:12
Speaker 2: and sell kombucha in a world where people didn't understand
53:15
Speaker 2: it and certainly didn't care for it.
53:18
Speaker 1: Yeah.
53:19
Speaker 2: So the advice that I was given early on is
53:21
Speaker 2: just follow your heart, right, follow what is meaningful to you,
53:24
Speaker 2: and follow what excites you. And you know, fortunately, what
53:29
Speaker 2: I learned excited me more than money and monetary success
53:33
Speaker 2: was the ability to be creative and put my heart
53:36
Speaker 2: and soul into something, to share it with somebody and
53:38
Speaker 2: hopefully see them enjoy it. So that it has been
53:42
Speaker 2: call it my north star is making sure that you
53:45
Speaker 2: put value in the things that are truly meaningful and
53:49
Speaker 2: make sure that that's not money. I love it.
53:52
Speaker 1: I love it.
53:53
Speaker 2: So that's number one. The other is don't listen to
53:57
Speaker 2: what people think or what people say. You know said
54:00
Speaker 2: early on, and I know this is a cliche statement,
54:02
Speaker 2: but everybody has opinions, and most of them stink. That's
54:07
Speaker 2: the PG version of that statement. But it's true that
54:11
Speaker 2: when you're doing something different, you can't expect people to
54:15
Speaker 2: understand because people don't understand things that are foreigned to them,
54:18
Speaker 2: and a lot of times people don't embrace things that
54:21
Speaker 2: are unique. But if you want to be a trail blazer,
54:26
Speaker 2: you have to kind of plug your ears, put your
54:28
Speaker 2: head down and do what you're doing. And as long
54:30
Speaker 2: as you're following the path, as I said, following your heart,
54:34
Speaker 2: but more importantly following you know, integrity and good intentions
54:38
Speaker 2: like you're genuinely trying to, as cheesy as it sounds,
54:41
Speaker 2: make the world a better place. Only good will come
54:43
Speaker 2: your way.
54:44
Speaker 1: Love that. Okay, you have an opportunity right now, looking
54:48
Speaker 1: back on your fifteen year old self, to offer yourself
54:52
Speaker 1: one piece of advice. Looking back on that tough time
54:56
Speaker 1: when your mother is you know, coming out of breast
54:58
Speaker 1: cancer and maybe around the time your brother passes away,
55:02
Speaker 1: you have an opportunity to offer him one piece of advice.
55:05
Speaker 1: What do you tell him?
55:06
Speaker 2: Offer my brother? Not for you offer me. Hang in there.
55:11
Speaker 2: You're going to have some high highs and some really
55:15
Speaker 2: low lows. But as long as you stay true to yourself,
55:19
Speaker 2: you will weather this storm. Love that and never let
55:22
Speaker 2: anything or anyone take your happiness.
55:26
Speaker 1: Amazing GG, thanks so much for sitting down with me today.
55:29
Speaker 2: Thank you for having me.
55:30
Speaker 1: This is awesome. Please take a moment to leave a
55:32
Speaker 1: quick review by clicking the link with the description to
55:35
Speaker 1: this episode. We all face multiple hurdles in life. I
55:38
Speaker 1: want to hear about yours. Reach out to me at
55:40
Speaker 1: Emily at Hurdle dot us. Connect with the pod on
55:43
Speaker 1: Instagram and Twitter at Hurdle Podcast GT. Where do they
55:47
Speaker 1: find you? Where do they find all of the all
55:50
Speaker 1: the things?
55:51
Speaker 2: Well, you can find us at a click of a
55:53
Speaker 2: mouse or a press of a button. So our website
55:56
Speaker 2: is Gtslivingfoods dot com. You can go to our Instagram,
56:00
Speaker 2: which is GT's Kombucha. You can find our products in
56:04
Speaker 2: virtually every store from grocery store to Natural Store to Walmart.
56:08
Speaker 2: It's in the refrigerated section, typically by the juices or
56:11
Speaker 2: the produce. And we have two brands, GTS Kombucha and Synergy,
56:15
Speaker 2: which you'll find everywhere, as well as some other new
56:18
Speaker 2: products in certain areas.
56:19
Speaker 1: Awesome, I am at Emily Abadi. Another hurdle conquered. Catch
56:24
Speaker 1: you guys next time.