Biofach 2025: YAYA Kombucha on organic brewing, low-sugar drinks and German expansion
04 Mar 2025 | YAYA Kombucha
YAYA Kombucha, the first Dutch kombucha brand, introduced its signature range and the first Maté Kombucha in Europe at Biofach 2025. As the brand expands into Germany, it remains committed to 100% organic ingredients and low-sugar formulations to meet growing consumer demand for healthier soft drink alternatives. Its CEO, Stefan de Waal shared new company ambitions based on well-being. He talked about the inspiration behind the new Maté flavor and the challenges of scaling while staying true to quality and sustainability.
My name is Vya Patel, and I'm a senior journalist at Nutrition Insight and really happy to be talking to you today.
Can you please introduce yourself Kombucha?
Thank you, Va.
The pleasure is mine.
My name is Stefan De Waal.
I'm the CEO of Yaya Kombucha.
We're a Dutch kombucha brand founded in 2017 by Thomas Charlotte.
We're not only the first kombucha brand, but we also created the first Dutch kombucha brewery, and they're building the category in the kombucha category in the Netherlands ever since with organic and clean label products with a focus on innovation but also on taste, and that's one of the things that makes our kombucha stand out versus versus other brands.
So I have some questions.
Let's just jump right in.
What makes Yaya kombucha different from other kombucha brands as they expand into Germany?
So we are one of the first kombucha brands in Europe.
We were the first in the Netherlands, but also one of the first in in total Europe.
We were also one of the first breweries in Total Europe, so especially in the 1st 5 years, we really took a role to develop the category in the Netherlands but also in Europe.
So we helped and inspired a lot of other kombucha brands starting up their business.
So I I think we could say we're yeah we're yeah, we're an industry expert based on, on quality and also clean clean label products.
So, all our, all our brands are all our kombuchas are organic, clean label, so that's that that that's a USB.
But definitely also, we got rewarded by , by several instances for, , for our great taste.
So we won, several times the Great Taste Awards.
And it's also what you see in the Netherlands that people choose our products as in retail, in our web shops, but also in bars and restaurants because of the accessibility of our products.
We're really focusing on making our products refreshing and after every sip you want to take another one actually.
That's, that's one thing, and another thing is that since over the last few months we've really been working on, on our, on our, on our new sharpened proposition, and we decided with the whole team that we want to be a more value driven company.
So we created a new purpose where we are on a mission now to inspire 50 million consumers by 2032 to make better drink choices and improve mental -being whilst helping people to get the best of their lives.
So I think those are the main ingredient.
And I know that your mate kombucha was the first in Europe.
So why did you choose this flavor and how does it fit into current trends?
So we do a lot of research into innovative flavorings and also into consumer trends, and we see that mate is a really Growing popular flavor profile.
It's really famous in South America where the heritage lies.
Also in North America, you see a lot of celebrities and sports people drinking it, but also in Europe you see the mate trend rising.
Other brands who do dedicated mate drinks are growing in popularity, and we always want to be innovative whilst creating exciting flavor to kombuchas.
Therefore we thought mate would be a really nice addition to our core portfolio.
And how do you keep your drinks tasty but also healthy, especially with a lot of people worrying about sugar these days?
So our focus is on creating the best tasting kombuchas.
So we do use sugar in our products because we think sugar is a better option than using sugar replacements.
As for the taste, as also for health, because sugar in general, it's, it's not unhealthy, you just need to take care that you don't, consume too much.
And another thing is our kombucha includes 4.6 g of sugar per 100 mL, and it is way lower than, for example, Coca-Cola and also way lower than a lot of other sugary traditional soda options.
So flavor first, but we also try to use as less sugar.
In our products as possible and we are also in terms of product development, we are also always looking at how can we decrease the sugar content in our products so that's an ongoing process.
Challenges do you face in growing your business while staying true to your organic and quality ingredients?
That's a good question.
We are a rapidly growing brand.
We are growing really fast, and some of the Ingredients are that we use for our kombuchas are are, yeah, they're all are high quality, but some of them are also quite rare.
For example, yeah, our top selling product is is our Yuzu kombucha.
A Japanese citrus fruit from Japan, quite rare, quite expensive, but the organic variety is even rarer than the regular variety.
So, at the moment we are facing supply issues with this specific product.
There is there is some available but not in the quantities that we need.
So that's for example, one really big challenge that we have and staying true to our organic proposition.
But on the other hand, we're looking for a long term partnership, so we hope to find the right partners who are willing to grow with us and therefore also secure our supply of ingredients.
Thank you so much for your time today.
Thank you.
