Worldwide Directory: 1,000 strong!

A week ago we announced the Booch News Worldwide Directory of commercial kombucha brewers. We found these companies by looking for Instagram accounts.The list, organized by Region, Country. State and City is in the drop-down menu at the top of the page.

If you are on a mobile device choose the menu option on the right side and the drop-down menus from there.

1,000 Kombucha Brewers

While the directory will continue to grow, we’ve reached the milestone of 1,000 worldwide kombucha brewers. This is, we suspect, the largest listing available anywhere.

Our methodology was quite simple, tracking Instagram accounts from one list of Followers to another (a special thanks to @KombuchaSummit for their awesome listing!). We included any company with a product is sold in a bottle that has a professionally produced label (eliminating the many home brewers who share their ‘booch with friends in recycled containers).

The very fact we were able to locate 1,000 commercial companies will be a surprise to those who rely on publications like Forbes. In May of this year Forbes stated “There are more than 350 kombucha makers in the world (most in the U.S.)” Technically, yes, this is correct. A thousand companies is indeed “more than 350”!

Statistics

The 10 countries with the largest number of brewers:

USA	394
Brazil	96
Canada	85
UK	51
Australia	46
Mexico	28
Indonesia	18
New Zealand	17
Spain	16
Germany	14

The top five US states are

California	82
Florida	28
New York	26
Oregon	24
Colorado	18

The 10 countries with the most breweries per head of population (2017 data)

Country	Brewers	Population	Ratio
New Zealand	17	5	0.29
Canada	85	37	0.44
Australia	46	25	0.54
Sweden	13	10	0.77
USA	394	327	0.83
UK	51	66	1.29
The Netherlands	12	17	1.42
Brazil	96	210	2.19
Spain	16	47	2.94
Mexico	28	129	4.61

In other words, while New Zealand has a kombucha brewery for every 290,000 people and the US has one for every 830,000 people, there’s only one for each four-and-a-half million in Mexico. Way down the list there’s only one per 95 million in India.

Obviously, compared to the likes of New Zealand, Canada and Australia most places still have room to grow. In no way can those regions be considered to have reached saturation point.

Of course, what these numbers don’t account for is the volume each brewer produces. Companies such as GTs and Health-Ade in the USA produce many thousands of gallons a week.

But remember, they both started in their kitchens!

Tip: Complete your Instagram Bio

One lesson from compiling the directory is the value of a complete Instagram bio. It should include the URL of your main website and, ideally, your location and phone number. Your customers might like to get in touch!

The Worldwide Kombucha Directory is a work in progress. Please send additional company names, as well as any corrections, to ian@boochnews.com.