MOMO kombucha was in the news recently after securing an additional £2 million in investment funds. I ask co-founder Josh Puddle about the history and plans for his company.

In May 2016, Josh was somewhere over the North Atlantic, on a flight from London to New York, when his girlfriend, now wife, Lisa, started telling him about gut health. She claimed that there was a new drink in the States called “kombucha” that had become popular. At the time, as I had discovered, it was almost entirely unknown in the UK.

They went to a Whole Foods in Manhattan and were astounded by the amount of kombucha in the cooler, it was “meters wide, floor to ceiling, loads of brands, loads of flavors. And we absolutely loved the stuff.”

Josh shared what happened next.

When we returned to London, we did nothing about it for about seven months. Although obviously, the idea was percolating away. At Christmas, we were back at my parents’ house. And I was feeling particularly fed up with my corporate job. I’d been in the City for ten years. I’d learned a considerable amount, but I had always had this yearning to do my own thing. So I went online and I bought Hannah Crumb’s Big Book of Kombucha and a £30 kombucha-making kit. When Lisa and I got home, we brewed our first-ever batch on New Year’s Day, 2017. And I just completely fell in love with the process of making it.

From the beginning, the company was built on Lisa’s unwavering belief that it had the potential to be something truly remarkable. Even the name was inspired by her favorite children’s book.

They spent almost two years building  the foundations of the company: developing their recipe, branding, and website. Josh returned to the States on a fact-finding visit to Los Angeles, where he met Hannah Crum, who consulted on starting the business.

From day one, their mission has been simple: to make the UK’s best kombucha. That meant keeping it raw, completely unfiltered, and brewed the traditional way. They ferment in hundreds of small nine-liter glass jars, which are pumped into a brite tank before being bottled.

MOMO utilizes high-quality ingredients and artisanal brewing methods, incorporating organic teas and slow-pressed juices. The brand’s commitment to producing raw, unfiltered kombucha not only enhances flavor but also maximizes health benefits, appealing to health-conscious consumers.

In fact, in a 2024 test of kombucha commercially available in the UK, fermentation experts and citizen scientists Jo Webster and Caroline Gilmartin discovered that “The only commercial kombucha we tested that behaved like a real kombucha was MOMO.”

The operation has grown from a husband-and-wife team to a team of 26. From shipping 400 bottles a week when they started, to 50,000 bottles a week today. Last year MOMO was named to the Sunday Times Best Places to Work list.

The recent £2 million funding round, supported by 24 angel investors including Jez Galaun, co-founder of Brixton Brewery, will be used to enhance production capacity through a larger brewery facility and the acquisition of new equipment. This latest investment boosts MOMO’s total funding to £4.5 million. The funds will enable them to significantly scale their production capacity, which has been a limiting factor since the brand’s launch, and continue to enhance the quality of their kombucha offerings.

They sell a core range of four flavors: ginger lemon, elderflower, turmeric, and raspberry hibiscus.  

They are known for a number of seasonal specialties, and take the time to visit the locations where ingredients originate. Josh is passionate about these sources and delights in meeting the suppliers. They work with seasonal produce supplier Natoora.

Watermelon

Unless you’ve tried one of Zerbinati’s Sentinels, you’ve never tasted a watermelon with such intense, concentrated flavour. That depth comes from careful control. Watermelons are adapted to soak up as much water as they can – and too much leads to dilution. On the clay-rich soils of his farm in Sermide, Oscar Zerbinati shields the plants from rain and raises the best fruits onto mounds so excess water drains away. Smaller fruits are removed, allowing each plant to channel its energy into one. The result is very large (up to 18kg!), watermelons with a punchy sweetness. A perfect match for unfiltered kombucha.

Blood Orange and Green Mandarin

We flew out to Sicily, met Carmelo and his family took us for an amazing tour through the groves where we were just ripping oranges off the trees, ripping them open and eating them, squeezing them into our mouths. It was an amazing experience. And we got taken out for a big, big Sicilian dinner that night. And he also does these amazing mandarins. For our winter seasonal flavor we use his green mandarins. They’re harvested before they’re ripe. Most of the flavor is in the skin of the fruit. And that’s my favorite, the green mandarin.

Rhubarb

We get our rhubarb from a farmer in Yorkshire called Robert Tomlinson. His fourth-generation farm in a place called Pudsey in Yorkshire is just him and his wife, they are the operation. And it’s the most beautiful thing you can see in farming. You walk into forcing sheds where they essentially force the rhubarb to grow in the dark. And then, and then he and his wife Paula, they harvest the rhubarb by candlelight. They can’t turn the lights on because the rhubarb will switch into photosynthesis. So they’re harvesting it by candlelight. And, it’s incredibly hard work, really, really physical, long days, long hours for quite a short period of time. And then the rhubarb gets sent straight down to London, where it gets juiced. And then we add it to the kombucha.

MOMO also do limited editions, usually one or two per year.

Tate Modern Coffee Kombucha

The last one we did was a collaboration with the Tate Modern, the famous London art gallery located on the South Bank. We created a coffee kombucha, working closely with their roasters to find the right coffee and decide how we would brew it. What made it truly special was that it coincided with the Tate Modern’s 25th anniversary. And they authorized us to use ‘The Snail’ by Matisse, which hangs in the gallery.

Visitors to London can enjoy MOMO Kombucha ion the spectacular Level 6 restaurant with a view of St Paul’s.

What’s really surprised me is how much kids enjoy it. When I pick up my my children from school, you see other kids will go straight to the coffee shop across the road. And instead of buying a lemonade or an ice cream, their treat after school treat is a bottle of MOMO, which is which is really cool to see.

Listen to the podcast to hear John tell the story of MOMO kombucha.

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