Forage Kombucha
Addictions can be costly. Henry Aschauer never realized the price of his kombucha jones until he became a regular user in 2014. Then the monies spent began adding up.
“I am frugal and didn’t want to spend $4 to $5 a day supporting my habit,” says Aschauer, a Brunswick, Maine, native who, with partner Doug Hamaker, owns both Roast Public House and Forage Kitchen on State Street.
“I started homebrewing kombucha in my apartment, but initially I wasn’t super happy with it,” he says. Aschauer stopped homebrewing, but then the 2006 UW-Madison economics grad began looking at the fermented tea-based product with its natural nutrients and probiotics in a different light. “It was very much the chef mentality of trying to do as much as you can in-house,” Aschauer says. “Once we saw how well other kombucha was selling at Forage, I decided to try again.”
After eight months of experimenting with various teas and flavors, Aschauer’s results improved. Hamaker, who also holds a 2006 UW economics degree, enthusiastically supported the venture. “Doug said, ‘Dude, this is good. Let’s try and sell it in the restaurant,’” Aschauer remembers. “That’s led to a pretty interesting journey.”
During 2016, a year after Forage opened its doors, kombucha brewing commenced in the restaurant’s basement. By January of this year, Aschauer and Hamaker had started packaging their signature kombucha flavors in 12-ounce cans.
It’s the cans, rather than glass bottles, that help keep the cost of the product under control. Rather than $4 to $5 per bottle, Aschauer can sell his raspberry or ginger kombucha for $2.50 or even $2 per can. In addition, cans are lighter than bottles, making recycling easier and shipping less costly.
“We brew about 80 cases of 24 cans, or a little less than 2,000 cans per week,” Aschauer says. “But we’re hitting the point where the supply is not meeting the demand, and we need to find a stand-alone brewing facility to expand our operation.”
State food production laws that treat fermented products differently than they do other foods are forcing Forage Kombucha to find new digs. Because production currently takes place within a licensed restaurant, only 25 percent of total business sales can be derived from kombucha. The growing demand, especially outside the restaurant, makes a new home for production and canning necessary.
Forage Kombucha is sold at 22 local retail accounts, including HyVee and Metcalfe’s grocery stores and Barriques. Because Metcalfe’s owns a store in Wauwatosa, the brand also has a toehold in the Milwaukee metro area.
Hedi Moussavi, a former colleague of both restaurateurs who now works for General Mills in Minnesota, also has managed to place the kombucha in 11 Twin Cities retail accounts. “That provides some useful data points to compare Minnesota sales with Madison sales,” Aschauer says.
The pair currently is looking at a Fitchburg location for its brewing operation. Assuming all goes well, Aschauer and Hamaker will be up and brewing there by fall and may add two new flavors to the lineup.
“We’d like to increase our production and expand our distribution in Wisconsin,” Aschauer says. “Other than Metcalfe’s we haven’t touched Milwaukee, and we have no placement up north.
“It would be nice to be able to stop in at Eau Claire or La Crosse on our way to our Minneapolis accounts,” he adds.
