Why Kombucha May Never Make It Really Big
The vinegary drink has jumped from health food boutiques to convenience stores. But hurdles remain before a trend that was a fad can go truly mass market.
Illustration: Kurt Woerpel
High fructose corn syrup, the ubiquitous sugar substitute blamed for slowly killing Americans through diabetes, obesity and heart disease, has been under assault for almost 15 years. One of its biggest users—the carbonated soda ecosystem—has been shrinking in the face of public health concern and plummeting soda consumption, now at its lowest point in three decades.
Industry giants Coca-Cola Co. and PepsiCo Inc., long aware of this situation, have swallowed up sports drinks, flavored waters, juices and seltzer companies in a bid to diversify. And while they’ve seen better news from their beverage units, the search for the latest thing continues. For the past few years, that thing has been kombucha.