We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Grant Ruhlman. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Grant below.

Grant, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. What can you share with us about the story behind how you found your key vendors?

I feel lucky to have launched Homebucha in Durham, NC, a town that is known for its local food culture. As a fledging business owner, I just wanted my product to be represented at the local businesses where I was inspired to shop. My background is in small scale sustainable farming, so I already had a window into the restaurants and markets that put a priority on high quality local ingredients. I assembled a list of potential vendors, mostly based on my favorite restaurants and shops, and basically started cold calling from there. I would drop in personally with samples, leave with bartenders, sometimes connect with managers, and always try to keep the door open. Showing up personally, and crafting our product right here in Durham, is a huge benefit to our marketing strategy. Our business owners in Durham really get it, that our success is intertwined and its important to keep our dollars circulating in our local economy. Its obviously helpful to me when a business decides to carry our product, but there is also a circular benefit that happens as kombucha lovers in the area seek out the places that carry Homebucha. It has been a slow growth curve, but it has really snowballed as Homebucha keeps showing up at more and more local businesses, which has grown its profile to the point where folks actively seek us out as the premier kombucha option in our region.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

My name is Grant Ruhlman, I’m the founder and fermenter of Homebucha Kombucha, based in Durham, NC. I grew up in North Carolina and have a ton of pride in the beauty and diversity of our state. My entry into the kombucha industry was through small scale sustainable farming. My experience working on local farms instilled a deep passion for just how special locally crafted products are. In some ways, I still feel like I’m farming, but instead of fields filled with veggies I’m now working with tanks filled with kombucha cultures. Running a micro kombucha brewery has kept me connected to some of the pieces that I love most about our local food community. I still have a deep relationship with the ingredients I’m using and what is seasonally available. We are still members of 2 area farmers markets, and have great relationships with so many amazingly talented farmers and makers through that. We are connected to the area’s best restaurants through our wholesale program. We are proud of these connections and they are core to what makes Homebucha stand apart from other brands in the industry. We brew our kombucha in the traditional method, and our name “Homebucha” comes from the fact that we are still brewing in the traditional open top home brew method, despite growing quite a bit over the years. At the core of our business is making kombucha that tastes really good. We have been able to introduce this amazing beverage to so many people over the years that had never enjoyed kombucha before. One of my favorite things to hear at the farmers’ market is “wow, this doesn’t suck!” That’s maybe not the most traditional compliment, but to me it means that they are enjoying something they never thought they could enjoy before. That’s huge, especially when it comes to a product like kombucha that can be a great addition to a healthy lifestyle.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

When the COVID 19 pandemic first emerged, it was a huge hit to the service industry. The majority of our business relies on sales to local restaurants, and almost all of them temporarily closed. We had about 2 months with near zero wholesale orders. Without knowing what was to come, we quickly shifted gears into direct-to-customer marketing. We opened our kitchen up once a week for a pre order pickup. We setup an online store through Square where customers could see our offerings and order. We used social media to highlight our products, as well as other local businesses that could really use extra support. With extra time on our hands due to lower production requirements, we supported a local free lunch initiative and shifted focus to that project. Despite sales being down, we remained active and gained a lot of community support through that time.

For those first months, sales were slim, but as customers and businesses slowly adapted we were able to continue using those systems for increased sales. Our wholesale program has bounced back with restaurants re-opened, but we still have a dedicated community who use our online store and come to our weekly kombucha pickup. We lost some wholesale customers during that period, but we have really strong relationships with the clients that remained. This was a great lesson in turning a serious challenge into an opportunity for growth.

What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?

I’ve found that being very generous with our product has been instrumental to growing our clientele. That applies to samples to potential wholesale clients, sliding scale payment options at events, gifting free product spontaneously to special customers, donating to businesses that align with our values, and bringing product when we go to parties and social functions. Get the product out there! Our best customers end up being product ambassadors, and making them feel appreciated goes such a long way. Many of our wholesale clients came to us because an eager Homebucha fan talked us up when they were patronizing a local restaurant. Requests from customers often go a lot further than a cold call, so we do our best to empower our fans in helping us market.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.homebucha.net/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/home.bucha/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/grant-ruhlman-3342418a/