MOMO Kombucha has a new home at the foot of the Food Exchange and Josh Puddle, co-founder of the premium soft drink brand with big ambitions tells us why the market location has been fundamental to its progress to date

MOMO launched in October 2018 and husband and wife team Josh and Lisa Puddle (pictured above) spent the early months brewing at home and supplying local delicatessens and cafes in South East London. Traction built quickly and soon they were signing a lease for 2,000sqft of space in Arch 8 at New Covent Garden Market.

“The space felt ginormous when we first moved in,” recalls Josh. “It was pretty much me here on my own at first, then we hired Matt, who is now our head brewer managing a team of eight. For a while, he was in the back of the unit brewing three days a week while I was at the front, but we’ve seen consistent organic growth since then and rapidly outgrew that space.”

That ginormous arch began to seem pretty small. The business has roughly doubled in size every year and projects to do at least that again in 2024 and ’25. Josh first took on a second railway arch, to allow one to be used purely for the kombucha brewing process. Early this year though, he recognised that still larger premises were needed. In May, MOMO moved into around 11,000sqft of space at the Food Exchange – for any reader who is familiar with the building, it’s the space vacated by The Menu Partners in late 2023. “This is good progress for us, but it is very much a temporary home,” says Josh. “We see this as another stepping stone – where we will create a rock solid foundation for the really big move into what will hopefully then be a purpose-built facility, with everything under one roof and exactly how we want it.”

He wants that next big move to see MOMO remain in the market. “Being here has been hugely important for the development of our business,” he explains. “The obvious thing is location – you can hire someone from Walthamstow, Dorking or Beckenham and they can easily get here. We’re also close to a lot of our customers – around 75% of MOMO’s business is done in central London. I’m a 12-minute cycle from home and around half an hour from those customers.”

“There are so many aggravations when you’re trying to build a business, but this market works really well – we’ve had no security issues, there are always people around, transport can always get in and the fact that your premises and location work for you means a lot.”

The entire brewing process continues to be carried out in the market and MOMO is proud of its traditional methods, which set it apart from most other kombucha brands in an increasingly crowded marketplace. Josh adds: “When we do move from these units, we’ll consider being outside the market, of course, but ideally I think we’d want to stay at NCGM because of all the plus points. We really want to keep all the elements of our operation together for as long as we possibly can, as we believe the sales and marketing team should be connected with what’s happening in the brewery.”

Other perks of the location, like going for a regular run round Battersea Park, which a lot of the MOMO team do, and hosting yoga classes for the local community (there were 60 at the last one) add another layer to the general feelgood factor of brewing and marketing a healthy soft drink. “A lot of our marketing effort right now is putting on community events,” says Josh, “getting people together and connecting.”

Social impact and sustainability are always front of mind, as Josh and Lisa are “committed to using business as a force for good”. As reported in Market Times previously, the firm is proudly certified B-Corp and organic and a London living wage employer. Their products have picked up a number of Great Taste Awards and recognition of the company’s achievements to date came recently with a second place in the “Best SME” category at the Wandsworth Business Awards and Josh winning Business Owner/Entrepreneur of the Year (which he points out is a joint award with Lisa).

The awards and the move to new premises are not the only milestones this year either. “We completed our fifth funding round at the beginning of the year and raised another £1 million, so the total we’ve raised now is £2.5m,” says Josh. “That is growth capital; we’re still not profitable yet, but we’re on track to be profitable next year. We do need to invest in a fair bit of equipment though, to help us scale up.

“I am really pleased with how the business is progressing; we’ve got some great data from Ocado for instance, where three of our products are the numbers one, two and three best sellers of around 200 in their single format soft drinks category. We also launched with Gail’s in February and we’re part of its craft supplier community. We smashed their expectations (though not our own) on sales rates. Gail’s initially felt ‘good’ would be about 1,400 bottles a week, but we’re already doing 3,500. Riverford is another good customer and a really impressive business. We’ve just launched an exclusive Orange & Rose kombucha (above) with them and that’s really exciting.”

MOMO is more than holding its own then in a fast-expanding category. “I always felt that the kombucha market would get this competitive in the UK,” Josh says. “When we first encountered it in New York it was already very competitive in the States. At Whole Foods, it was the biggest soft drink category in their fridge, with loads of brands and flavours. Kombucha plays to all the megatrends, such as gut health, low-sugar, alternatives to alcohol, energy-boosting, veganism and vegetarianism. And we asked ourselves why such a great product was so big there, yet we’d never heard of it in the UK.

“From the start, with the strong conviction that this was going to become a big, competitive category, our aim was to produce the UK’s best tasting, highest quality kombucha. It’s always been about premium, but also authenticity – we make kombucha in a very different way to most of the others out there. Without naming names, most kombuchas on the market are pretty compromised, but if you come into our brewery, we’re producing kombucha in a way that remains very similar to how you might do it at home.”

Josh feels that MOMO’s uncompromising approach will continue to stand it out from the crowd as the kombucha market develops more nuanced segments. ”I feel our segment– premium and authentic – is thinning out a little. It’s still a relatively small category and it’s very competitive. There are maybe 25 kombuchas sharing a space that’s still only worth around £40m a year and most, if not all, are not turning a profit yet. The market is growing at 30-40% a year and I think that will continue for decades.

“I know that some potential customers see us as a bit pricey and I understand that, but there are an awful lot of consumers out there who will pay for authenticity and quality. Sales through our own website show us that subscription (repeat) sales are increasing every month. People who drink MOMO Kombucha for the gut health benefits want to do that regularly.

“Our ambition over the next two to three years is to become the UK’s favourite kombucha brand – as we get bigger, more of our marketing message will focus on the fact that a lot of the other kombuchas out there are kombucha in name only, they are not the real thing. We need to get ourselves into some of the bigger high-street retailers before we get to that stage though. We will definitely get there!”

For more information about kombucha and/or to connect with MOMO, go to its website or follow the business on Instagram - momokombucha