The friend at the lime holding a cold, fizzy bottle that isn’t a beer is exactly who Dominique Himiob is chasing now. Her Trinidad and Tobago company, Amare Probiotics, is rolling out a lower-sugar, ready-to-drink kombucha line built to be sipped in full rather than taken as a daily wellness shot, and she plans to start exporting to other Caribbean islands within 6 months, the Trinidad Guardian reported.
The change is bigger than a new label. Amare used to sell its kombucha as a one-shot-a-day health product. The new line is meant to be drunk like any other bottled beverage, with fresh branding to match, as the company repositions itself as a lifestyle brand. Its sauerkraut stays on shelves alongside it.
Himiob is betting on a shift in how young people drink. She points to falling alcohol sales worldwide, particularly among drinkers aged 18 to 30, who still want to go out with something that looks the part. Those are customers who, as she put it, “want to have a cool bottle in their hand” without the hangover.
Amare didn’t start as a business plan. Himiob first brewed kombucha at home as a remedy for her own irritable bowel syndrome, and in the early days she drove to Mayaro for fresh coconut water and to Couva for cane syrup. She was teaching science lessons to pay the bills when she persuaded a grocery to stock the drink on consignment, then stood in the aisle running tastings for shoppers who’d never heard of kombucha.
Eleven years later, the business brings in $2 million a year, makes roughly 400 cases a month and has been distributed by Hadco for 7 years. After moving through 4 facilities, it settled in 2023 at the Diamond Vale Industrial Estate, where Himiob says it runs the only kombucha microbrewery in the English-speaking Caribbean. A team of 3 handles production, and 2 of them have been there since day 1. Most of the raw materials are still sourced locally.
The next customers are outside the supermarket. Amare is pitching cafés, restaurants and hotels that want alcohol-free options on the menu, along with gyms and pilates and yoga studios, where its caffeinated kombucha is offered as an alternative energy drink. Himiob has also partnered with 5K races and has an eye on the pre-Carnival fitness season.
Exports could solve a second problem too. Earning foreign exchange abroad would let Amare buy cheaper imported inputs, Himiob said, while giving neighbouring islands a Caribbean-made option instead of kombucha shipped in from the US.
Amare’s new ready-to-drink line is heading to the local market now, with regional exports targeted within the next 6 months.
— SS
Stephen Stanberry
