I met her in a club down in old Soho
Where you drink champagne and it tastes like Coca-Cola
C-O-L-A, Cola

— Lola, The Kinks

Pascal Du Bois has been a fan of kombucha for many years, from the days when his French father made it when he was a boy. When his own daughter, Eloise was diagnosed with celiac disease he started making it at home. Now, 15 years later, he has launched ROBOT Kombucha, “The World’s Healthiest Cola”, sporting a name and branding designed to appeal to the youth market, but with multi-generational appeal::

We deduced that the fastest rising cases of gut health are around the 10-year-old age range. Common gut health problems are prevalent in 14-year-olds. And the group looking to actually actively do something about their gut health starts at about 18 years of age. So we know that the kombucha market therefore is stronger in the younger category. That doesn’t mean to say that the contents of the can should be any different . And the complexity of which we’ve made ROBOT, we know will appeal to all generations because it’s a remedy. It’s a genuine gut health fix. And so we know that the older generations are going to love it because it’s a great product.

Pascal credits the origin of the brand name to the ‘robot’ he and friend used to reverse engineer the classic cola taste that they’ve created from natural, organic, ingredients.

I called it robot because I had help from deep mind sophisticated artificial intelligence to help me decipher the flavors of Coca Cola. I was with a friend who’s very high up at a well known software company. We had flavor probes and the really interesting thing is that you can put flavor probes into products now and AI will give you the breakdown of the ingredients. Not just that, but they’ll give you the brand name of what you’re eating. So we had more than 40 different probes testing hundreds of different colas. I mean, all the brands, all the big brands and the small brands. We asked AI to then give us a breakdown of the types of ingredients we could use that would give us the same outcome, the same taste.

[Of interest: The word ROBOT comes from the Czech word “robota”, meaning “forced labor” or “servitude”. It was introduced to the world by Czech writer Karel Čapek in his 1920 science-fiction play R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots).]

ROBOT incorporates what is termed “postbiotic technology”, designed to last for the 18 month, un-refrigerated, shelf life of the product.

Let me explain to you what postbiotics are. So postbiotics are the bioactive compounds produced during fermentation, including organic acids, enzymes, peptides, antioxidant molecules. In ROBOT kombucha, the 13 bacteria and four yeast strains create sophisticated network of postbiotic metabolites that remain active, even after the drink is consumed.

I mean, these compounds, what do they do? They strengthen the gut barrier, reduce inflammation, they support immune function and protect against pathogens. They aid metabolic health by helping regulate blood sugar and lipid metabolization.

What else they do? They promote a balanced gut pH, creating a healthier environment for native microbiota. They provide antioxidant protection, reducing oxidative stress in the body. So ROBOT’s postbiotic technology is groundbreaking. It leverages the synergy of multi-strain fermentation.

They started with a range of different organic botanicals from which the flavor was extracted, then created a complex blend of more than a dozen types of bacteria and four strains of organic yeast. After fermenting for seven weeks they add a teaspoon of 100% organic honey, sourced from France, to each can. This mimics the familiar cola taste without added sugars or aspartame. The result is a healthy alternative designed to appeal to cola lovers.

Currently offered online, at £24.00 for a 6-pack, ROBOT is available in Honey, Pineapple-Mango, and Cherry Cola flavors.

Hear the full story about ROBOT Kombucha in this half-hour interview with founder Pascal Du Bois.

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