Kombucha for a cause
Chris McCoy uses his business to bring the community together and support his ailing mother
STORY BY ARIANA NAZARI | PHOTOS BY JAKE TULL
(Above) Kombucha is brewed and canned behind the Culture Cafe to be sent to over 200 retailers around the Northwest.
Chris McCoy quietly sings the lyrics to the 1979 song “Funky Town” by Lipps, Inc. He knows the words, but is hesitant to sing them out loud. “Gotta make a move to a town that’s right for me. Town to keep me movin’, keep me groovin’ with some energy.” While he listened to the radio one day, these very words inspired the name of his local, rapidly-expanding company, Kombucha Town. The quirky melody of the song and the words were a perfect fit for the funky, energy-boosting drink that would become the basis of his business.
If you take the elevator to the sixth floor of the historical, brick Bellingham Herald building, you will arrive at an apartment overlooking State Street. The eccentrically decorated room is filled with vibrant art, personal memorabilia and budding plants. Kane, a lemon bonsai tree that Chris named, sits on a high-rise table near the window. This is the original brewing space that Chris founded Kombucha Town in the fall of 2011.
“Kombucha” is something that most people have heard about, whether or not they have tried the tangy-tasting, fermented tea. The cold beverage, which originates from ancient China, has been around for more than 2,000 years. The drink requires an acquired taste, but it has an endless list of health benefits, such as boosting mood, energy and metabolism. For the past ten years, the North American Kombucha market share has started to make major waves in the beverage industry. Kombucha is becoming much more than just a health trend. It is the largest growing non-alcoholic beverage category, according to Kombucha Brewers International. By 2020, SPINS Market Research Group estimates that the Kombucha market will become a $1.8 billion industry. Chris is capitalizing off of the booming market, which has enabled him to grow out of his Herald apartment space.
Chris, now 30, and Blaize Huntley, 26, the head brewmaster of Kombucha Town, started brewing one-gallon jars of Kombucha over an open-flame burner with the window open in the apartment. But Chris’ interest for Kombucha was initially sparked in 2007 by his past roommate who used to brew the beverage in their apartment. “I thought it was cool, and I loved the way Kombucha made me feel,” he says.
Kombucha Town is taking off, but the success of the business has come with a fair share of obstacles for Chris to overcome.
Chris was born on a cattle ranch in rural Ridgeway, Colorado — population: 500; elevation: 8,600 feet; surrounded by the San Juan Mountains. Chris and his older brother Jeremy used to run around on his family’s ranch in superman underwear and cowboy boots. “My first word was ‘moo’,” he says. “It was a pretty ideal childhood.”
He was raised by his pioneering parents, Hugh and Sharon McCoy. His mother owned a basil company, while his father, who worked for the local Delta airlines, used to build and single-handedly sail catamarans across the Atlantic Ocean in the 60s. Chris highlighted how influential his parents were on having an entrepreneurial-oriented mind.
His family moved to Bellingham right before Chris reached his 10th birthday. It was a good place to grow up, he says. After graduating Bellingham High School, he continued to pursue education without a crystal clear vision for his future.
Chris dropped out of Western his first go around in 2004. “I didn’t want to go to college. And I was selling weed instead,” he says. “I thought I could support myself.” That didn’t last forever. He witnessed friends getting caught and realized it was a slippery slope.
Eventually Chris jumped back into school. He was tired of the work force. This time it was Whatcom Community College. And he was doing really well. He started to take interest in sustainable methods. In fact, he was gearing up to set off to Australia for a full ride-scholarship program to study sustainable business development.
But he never made it to Australia. In the summer of 2007, Hugh McCoy, Chris’ father, developed brain cancer.
In a heavy voice, he reveals that the illness eventually took his father’s life after an eight-month battle with cancer.
“It turned my whole life upside down,” he says.
The passing of his father left his mother traumatized and Chris felt the need to keep himself busy to fill the void of his father’s death.
No longer in school, for eight months he occupied himself with a series of construction and service-industry jobs, visiting his mother in Colorado. During a month-long trip to Ecuador, Chris gained a new sense of focus. “I felt like I could something more than just swing hammers and sell margaritas.”
Chris committed to finishing school. He went back to Western and graduated in 2010 with a degree in economics and environmental science — a time where his love for sustainability and the natural earth deeply began to cultivate. .
Life after graduation was not so conventional for Chris.
In 2011 Chris’ vision for Kombucha Town blossomed. He had realized that he could take his love for a beverage that positively impacts people’s life and turn it into a business. As he started to move forward with initial steps for the business, his plans were drastically altered when a new obstacle quickly emerged in his life. Chris’ mother was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease in the spring of 2011. With no close relatives in Colorado, Chris convinced his mom to move up to Bellingham to live with him in Bellingham. He became her full-time caregiver.
“It’s totally what I wanted to do six months after college,” he says. “Taking care of an Alzheimer’s patient never gets easier, especially when it’s your mother.”
Chris was struggling to take care of his mother and pursue his own dream. He was juggling his mother’s doctor appointments, while scouting venues for Kombucha town. He needed to make sure she was taking the right medication, while filing for permits and licenses for his business. He was searching for a lawyer to take over his mothers’ legal rights and also trying to find ways to make cash. He sold several personal items, like his white water rafting kayak, just to get the essentials of his business up and running, while also funding his mothers’ medical care. The pressure and anxiety of trying to handle both of these worlds was progressively building. He couldn’t handle it anymore.
“So, I ran away in 2012,” he says.
Chris says he craved change and space from the chaos that was consuming his life. So he went to Seattle. It was as far away as he could run without abandoning his mother, whom he still visited every week. During his time in the Emerald city, Chris was still developing pilot-plans for launching Kombucha Town. He was still brewing to build stock and finding ways to create funds, but it was only one of the many endeavors on his plate at the time. He was simultaneously working five different jobs. Chris was considering multiple routes he could take in his life. He thought to himself “Maybe I’ll be a professional kite border, maybe I’ll become a professional musician.” He was even thinking of going to graduate school at Seattle Pacific University.
Everything he was considering would leave his mother on her own. Chris’ path became clear. Committing to starting Kombucha Town in Bellingham would not only allow him the flexibility he needed to care for his mom, but it would also supply him with the means to support her. His decision was made.
“I did it for her,” he says. “I did it for my mom.”
Starting Kombucha Town meant investing money he did not have. He went into business with a short-lasting partner who embezzled a large portion of the company’s money and disappeared. He has forcibly gone into debt to get the business off the ground, support himself and pay for his mother’s expenses. Looking for another source of revenue, Chris’s family decided to sell their ranch back in Colorado. He received $90,000 of this profit and put towards expanding Kombucha Town
“I have been in the trenches, boostrappin’ a company and taking care of my mother for the last five years,” he says. Chris is finally starting to see the light at the tunnel and potential for his company. But he knows that there is still much work to be done.
A lot of people ask him how he does it. “I have absolutely no idea. I feel like I am going to give up all the time,” he says. “Sometimes you just want to throw up your hands and say ‘I quit!’” But Chris says that is not an option for him.
Today, the Kombucha Town team is creating the product in a 3,500-foot brewery located in the bottom of the Herald building, which they moved to early 2015. The space currently holds 30, 350-gallon tanks for the brewing process. Chris plans to eventually take over an additional 4,000-square feet in the Herald building’s basement to continue expanding production. It took a 13 month pilot-period of gearing up his company and building enough stock to start independently selling his product. In 2013, his first client was a Seattle-based Burlesque club called Rendezvous. In the fall of 2014, Walton Beverage Co. took over the distribution of Kombucha Town, and today it is now sold at over 200 retailers, from Idaho to British Columbia. This past January Chris continued to grow his company by opening a bar and restaurant called the Culture Cafè, located in the bottom of the Herald building across from Fiamma Pizza.
Much like the vibe of the Culture Café, Chris has created an atmosphere within the company that brewmaster Blaize would describe as laidback and collaborative.
Chris and Blazie often take rides down Galbraith Mountain to talk about future plans for the company.
“We are a very symbiotic group of people,” Chris says.
He aims to expand the culture of Kombucha Town further down the west coast, starting in San Diego. According to Chris, one-third of Kombucha produced in the U.S. is consumed in this region. One day he aspires to fund and create a Kombucha documentary to support the new-aged food movement, a movement that is pushing the growth of natural and organic food production and consumption. From 2003 to 2014, retail sales for natural and organic food have risen to represent $105 billion, according to SPINS Market Research Group.
He says that he would never be where he is today without the support of private investors, his team, close friends and outstanding community members. Starting a business from a grass-root approach has been incredibly challenging for him. It has forced Chris to learn more than he had ever expected. But he is proud of how Kombucha Town came to fruition.
Chris loves that he is creating a product that is benefiting people’s health. He also loves that he has created a space where the community can come together. But the true reason he started Kombucha Town was for his mother.