What’s Up, Dog? Olivia Wolff, recent Wake Forest graduate, and Lauren Miller, Wake senior, asked that age old question and turned it into a budding business. You may remember last spring when we sat down with the dynamic duo to hear about their start-up business: UpDog Kombucha. Now, we’re catching up again to see how their business has grown and see what’s up with UpDog.
Recap: when we checked-in with Lauren and Olivia a few months ago, they were just getting their business off the ground. They were brewing kombucha out of a dorm room kitchen and selling to other Wake Forest students on campus. In case you forgot- kombucha is a fizzy, fermented tea flavored with fruit juice that turns into a healthy, low sugar drink full of good-for-you enzymes and probiotics. After a summer off from brewing but with four months full of planning, UpDog is back up and running.
With a shiny new commercial kitchen, these entrepreneurs have grown their client base off campus and into the local community. You can find them in 11 different local-favorited businesses including Krankies Coffee, Mission Pizza, and Village Juice, as well as the Cobblestone Farmers’ Market and on campus at Wake Forest. The girls are working hard to keep up with demand. Three days a week are spent full time in the kitchen brewing kombucha, two days are spent selling off campus, and every day in between is a mix of making sales pitches to local businesses and staying on top of the logistics behind the scenes. “We’ve gone from brewing about five gallons a week to 125 gallons a week,” said Wolff.
That’s a lot of “booch!” So much, in fact, that it’s now sold by bottle, keg, and growler. Growlers are larger glass bottles that hold about 3 standard bottles of kombucha. “People are really responding to the new growler idea. We take our kegs to the farmers’ market and Wake. Customers buy growlers from us and bring them back from week to week for refills,” said Miller. What types of flavors, you ask? UpDog now has a set flavor line-up with official bottling and labeling. “Last semester was all about experimenting with flavors to see what our customers were willing to come back for,” said Miller. Now, that experimentation has been streamlined into six different flavors made with organic, cold-pressed juices: Mojito, Lavender, Pineapple Mint, Blueberry Mint, Apple Ginger, and Mango Ginger. What’s even better, each flavor is named after a different yoga pose- Sphinx, Happy Baby, Peacock, Wild Thing, and Sun Salute. Their favorites? “I tend to like the lighter flavors, Lavender and Mojito are my go-to’s,” said Wolff. “My all-time favorite is Mojito but Pineapple Mint is really growing on me, that’s our best-seller,” said Miller.
The flavors line-up is far from boring, and the kitchen is always brewing up new surprises. “Last week we collaborated with our farmers’ market friends from Gnomestead Hollow Farm and Forage and made a Maple Cinnamon kombucha with Chaga mushrooms. I know it sounds weird but it was actually delicious,” said Miller. “We brew seasonal flavors by the keg and use hand pressed juices. We just made a batch with some beautiful Muscatine grapes from a local farm; it was amazing,” said Wolff.
As for the future? For now it’s hard to tell but with their rapid success, Lauren and Olivia hope for the best. “We’re starting to expand out of Winston. We just got into a yoga studio in Elon, and we’re hoping to start selling in Greensboro as well,” said Miller. “In the near future, I’d love to see us expand out of Winston into more areas of North Carolina. My ultimate goal is for UpDog to become a household name,” said Wolff.
photos courtesy of Lauren Miller and Olivia Wolff
SaveSaveSaveSave
SaveSave
SaveSave