Founder Interview: Federico Citterio, Founder of Old Kombucha

Describe your product in one sentence and tell us about your brand.

Old Kombucha represent a young artisanal enterprise that produces fermented drinks in respect with the traditional recipe. I use this name to respect my choice, use the traditional (historique) Kombucha recipe, because Kombucha isn't a new product but it was born many years ago, so I've called this Old Kombucha. Like I say into my slogan: Old Kombucha.. an ancient novelty. Old Kombucha is the First Organic Italian company to produce Kombucha so our product is the first organic Kombucha made in Italy. To respect the best quality of products made in Italy, I've choose the best quality organic ingredients and brew with an ethical method. Our goal is to let people know the beautiful world of Kombucha all over Europe and create a big Kombucha consumption from child to old.

What‘s your story and how did you get started?

I'm Federico Citterio, Old Kombucha's Ceo & Founder. I started to create this company when I studied cooking at hotel management school. I was in love with the study of fermentation but create a Kefir brand was too much obvious because Kefir was already popular so I wanted to research a new unknown product, so I've create this brand and I present them during my school graduation with our first product in a beer bottles. When I had finished school, I've create our company without knowing anything about companies without entrepreneur parents and without any help; only with one wish: Let the world know Old Kombucha. During the creation process, I've create our lab where we produce our products still today. I've remade recipies and packaging but I don't remade my goal. My goal was and is to let all people know the Kombucha.

What‘s your current stage?

Today I work in with the help of my parents Cristina and Daniele. We produce Old Kombucha and we sell them nationally.

What excites you most about Kombucha and its future?

Kombucha will become the next big thing in Europe because it's a new flavor for our mouth and it isn't a totally standard flavor because each batch isn't equal so our mouth will find every times when we drink Kombucha many new particulary flavors. Many people will drink Kombucha in the next years because they are so tired to drink the soft drink, from many years everyday we hear to say: soft-drink is no good for your health, soft-drink contain too much sugar; but the soft-drink companies don't do anything about it, so the people everyday reduce their consumption. Also our new lifestyle more green and careful to health helps us to see and modify our lifestyle, to help our health and our spirit. So the Kombucha is the new best choice that you can find because it has a new flavor like when soft drink or energy drink were started 20 to 30 years ago. But it has also many other beneficials on our health. Now I ask you: Why Kombucha can't break the market?

What are your expectations in attending the Kombucha Summit?

I want to take home from Kombucha Summit the knowledge about how the other companies operate in the market (with distributors, sales agents or they go directly to the buyer or locals), how they grew up, how they conserve their products in stock and if they made internal marketing or with agency or avoid them and invest only on sales.

Thanks, Federico for the interview! You keep reading — we keep posting more interviews from the exciting world of Kombucha!

For those of you interested in participating in October: You can purchase tickets here (less than 50 tickets left) and in case you have any questions, comments or suggestions, ping us any time at info@kombuchasummit.com or on Instagram.