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The Future of the Kombuchaverse: Where We Go From Here
The Future of the Kombuchaverse: Where We Go From Here
In light of recent industry news, we stand all the more committed to the fact that business ethics have been the…
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Jamba D. shared thisA huge congratulations to our old friend Holly Jean Buck on being named a 2026 MacArthur Fellow! Holly, you’re incredible. I’m embarrassed to admit that Erin and I still haven’t read After Geoengineering. The CPG world swallowed us up for a while, but this is the nudge ALL of us need to pick it up. One of the gifts of getting older is watching good humnans you’ve known go on to do extraordinary things. I feel lucky that our paths crossed, Holly, and so happy to see your work recognized. https://lnkd.in/g9dZ8KTuMeet the 20 scholars and artists who've just won MacArthur FellowshipsMeet the 20 scholars and artists who've just won MacArthur Fellowships
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Jamba D. shared thisAfter 25 years in Colorado, we've moved back to California! We traded little Lyons, CO, for little Sebastopol, CA, and a mountaintop for an orchard just outside Occidental and not far from the Pacific. We'd been discussing moving closer to LA, but an opportunity emerged, and it all happened in a blur. It's hard to explain, but we felt like our time in Colorado had simply come to a close. We were ready for a change, so we sat down as a family and asked ourselves what we actually wanted. Our daughter wanted college in California. Our son wanted a change. Erin and I wanted to garden year-round, enjoy sunshine without scorching summers, and be closer to family, friends, and the ocean. So we ended up in a place where people still park nose-in and conversations frequently revolve around plants, soil, and gardening. We're back in the land of morning fog, vineyards galore, beautifully defunct California barns, the Russian River (with boats selling snow cones and smash burgers), and farm stands, flower stands, egg stands, plant stands, and bamboo forests. We're currently growing apples, pears, Asian pears, blackberries, persimmons, asparagus, walnuts, mulberries, grapes, and Chinese garlic. Next up are vegetables, salad greens, and tea in the greenhouse. Not to mention a giant sequoia, a hundred-foot-tall liquidambar, aspens, live oaks, Japanese maples, and several weeping willows. What we didn't appreciate was that we'd also bought a much bigger fixer-upper than imagined. The property promptly swallowed my summer. Somewhere between repairing buildings, sorting out water and septic systems, and preparing for the winter rains, I disappeared entirely from CPG and consulting. We're close to San Francisco, Berkeley, the Pacific, wine country, live music, theater, and the arts. We're surrounded by an extraordinary food, beverage, and agricultural community, including companies like Yerba Madre and Traditional Medicinals. After a summer spent getting our new home ready for the rains, I'm turning my attention back to CPG. I'm actively looking for my next opportunity, whether that's helping a founder scale a promising business, stepping into an operating role, or working with a company navigating growth or transition. I'm equally happy jumping in to help with manufacturing, formulation, or, as I recently told a friend, packing bags of product and discussing factory flow. After 14 years in CPG, I'd love to put that experience to work with another ambitious team. I'm open to consulting, fractional leadership, helping with production, or even a part time opportunity in Northern California or the Bay Area. If you're building something interesting or know someone who could use an experienced CPG operator, I'd genuinely appreciate an introduction. And if you're in Sonoma County or the Bay Area, let's get coffee. I've spent an unreasonable amount of time talking to contractors this summer and could use a change of subject. It's good to be back!
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Jamba D. shared thisRowdy Mermaid last produced about a year ago, and I stepped away in January. Yet every day I get emails, texts, DMs and LinkedIn/Facebook messages claiming they just tried our product, have one in hand, saw it on shelf, ordered it from the Amazon store we never had or our non‑existent Shopify account, received a mailer, or stumbled across our latest campaign and they’re here to help with ROAS, UGC, CRO, lifecycle marketing, ads, subscriptions, fulfillment, regulatory, expiring trademarks, sponsorships, taxes, analytics, ERP, offshore HR/PEO, and AI everything. Every-single-day someone texts me last call on a $200k loan. The problem, as LinkedIn users know all too well, is that so much feels like it's on autopilot. AI is driving a lot of it and the owners of many of these accounts are casting a very large AI-driven net and authenticity and factuality are just rounding errors. Similarly on LinkedIn I see wall‑to‑wall specialists and the same “vague business wisdom” the platform recently flagged as AI‑driven slop. It’s overwhelming and, frankly, daunting. How did so many people suddenly become experts at selling one‑size‑fits‑all playbooks? So this morning while drinking coffee and gardening I had my Robin Williams/Good Will Hunting moment when I found myself remembering the much beloved UC Berkeley professor Hubert Dreyfus who coined the phrase “calculative rationality” as his critique of AI -- 54 years ago. According to Dreyfus, AI offers such a logical path to streamlining and rationalizing that, as a result, culture begins privileging quantifiable outcomes (expert systems, metrics, formulaic procedures, optimization) over experience and embodied expertise. But making products and running brands isn’t solely about measuring, predicting, optimizing, tightening, corner cutting, or repeating procedures. It’s about relationships, trial, and getting your hands in the soil, so to speak. A lot of it is about the right music. It’s late nights, broken equipment, mistakes that become reasons, and the passion that drives a product, a brand or a team to overcome sometimes insurmountable roadblocks. So while my inbox insists there’s a single, optimized way to do everything, I’m reminded of that Good Will Hunting moment when Williams recognizes genius is not a substiture for experience. Or, to paraphrase Dreyfus, expertise isn’t just following rules; it’s the ability to adapt and respond skillfully to real, messy situations when rules don’t neatly apply.
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Jamba D. shared thisWithout David Delcourt's feed of workouts and getaways, I’d swear the entire world was just a little hopeless and forlorn. There was once an easy solution. What is the Calgon of today? https://lnkd.in/gmS4MXun
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Jamba D. shared thisI’m hearing some non‑CPG analysts warn that political risk and reduced refinery output from Iran could push food and fuel prices sharply higher this summer. AutoZone announced 3 days ago that they foresee a 40% decrease in the supply of motor oil. What I’m not seeing is the same conversation from brands, ops, and supply teams on how they are hedging against these real threats. If you work in supply, ops, or brand strategy, are you taking any concrete steps to de‑risk distribution and keep velocity steady?
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Jamba D. posted thisWhat happened to LinkedIn? It used to be useful, but now feels like Facebook, my spam folder, and ChatGPT had a baby. All the graphics, the unrelated hooks, the endless industry specialists -- it reads like autotuned music. While we're at it, what happened to AI? It used to feel smart and helpful, but for the past month it feels more annoying than helpful. Anyone else noticing all this?
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Jamba D. shared thisThis stopped me in my tracks at Costco. It contains a processed isolated corn fiber as the prebiotic. Thoughts?
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Jamba D. reacted on thisJamba D. reacted on thisThe second installment in the epic saga of Underground is out now!
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Jamba D. reacted on thisJamba D. reacted on thisCourage in action : Ashly Stewart & Reject Magazine Courage is when you take on a venture that probably shouldn’t succeed… Sweet is the feeling when it works Btw That’s been my experience with most of my life - coming to America, firebelly and so much more but that’s another post. My old friend Jessica Hall introduced me to Ashly at a breakfast place a while back - and of course we connected on LinkedIn Then one day I noticed a few months she was doing something very cool. She was launching a literary publication - wtf - I was fascinated . It’s called Reject Magazine A home for writers - regardless of format - and particularly for those who have been rejected more times than they care to remember. I loved the idea immediately And then I saw the 🐦⬛ logo - yes it’s a crow I f@cking love crows. Mystical. Highly intelligent. Misunderstood. Team players. My mother actually had crow friends. The same crows would come and hang out at her window. They remembered her. They’d make a racket in the trees near our house when she came home. And when I was there, I swear they knew who I was too. Crows remember faces for years. They remember their friends. They remember their enemies. And a community of crows? A murder. But beyond the name and the crow, what really got me is Ashly’s courage. Starting a literary publication in 2026 feels almost defiant - counter culture - amidst 15 second videos, prejudiced algorithms, and elusive attention And thats what Ashly did: launch a literary publication F$ck yeah. Last week we hung out over lunch I urged her to protect her energy - to remain focused You know the sacred creative energy that occasionally finds you. It’s worth protecting Because the practically nay sayers will tell you You don’t have enough time Your family needs you You don’t have enough money It’s too hard It’s unlikely it will succeed And … Most people are post literate Well Ashly did it anyway That’s courage. She took REJECT to Kickstarter. Exceeded her goal. And now she’s working her way through more than 300 submissions Over 350 people raised their hands - crows - and said Ashley here’s something I wrote Maybe that’s what I love most about REJECT. The people who keep writing when the powers that be say no - because I love the underground, the rebellion, the dreamers… So I’ve already proposed that the REJECT community should officially be called “The Murder” Viva la Reject May “The Murder” prosper Look up Reject Magazine and Ashly Stewart and I’ll hit you up when the next kick starter goes live
Experience & Education
Publications
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“Life Inside The Killing Jar”
5_Trope
Short story.
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“The Cotton Museum”
Matter Journal
Short story.
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“Bottlebrush”
Bombay Gin
Short story.
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“Demolition to Prevent Enemy Use”
McSweeney’s
Found list.
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“Glow Shrimp”
Fact Simile
Short story.
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Fossil 23
Black Lodge Press
Experimental work exploring rifts in textual objectivity.
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“Five-Cents a Day”
Ellipsis Magazine
Short story.
Courses
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Hegel, taught by Slavoj Žižek
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Nietzsche and Chiasmic Unity, taught by Friedrich Ulfers
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The Process of the Subject, taught by Giorgio Agamben
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The Science of Deleuze, taught by Manuel De Landa
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Honors & Awards
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NEXTY Award for Best New Ready-to-Drink Beverage
New Hope Network
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BevNet Best New Product
BevNet
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Colorado Companies to Watch
coloradocompaniestowatch.org
Rowdy Mermaid Kombucha was awarded a prestigious Colorado Companies to Watch award in 2019. CCTW highlights Colorado’s most innovative, visionary, job-creating, impactful, and successful 2nd Stage entrepreneurs, actively growing their business and expanding their network.
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Naturally Boulder Pitch Slam
Naturally Boulder
Rowdy Mermaid Kombucha takes second place at Naturally Boulder's prestigious Pitch Slam where we competed against dozens of brands in the CPG space.
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Jack Kerouac Award in Writing
Naropa University
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Joshua M. Bernstein
It’s hop harvest season in the Pacific Northwest, so for my latest Imbibe feature I decided to look at the state of the industry that’s essential to producing beer, especially all those aromatic IPAs. Like the broader agricultural industry, hop farming is filled with booms and busts. The go-go 2010s saw hops transform from commodities, mainly used to impart balancing bitterness, into fruity, tropical designer goods that fueled the hazy IPA boom. Care for some Citra and Mosaic in your IPA? Between 2011 and 2021, American hop production doubled from 29,787 acres to a historic high of 60,872 acres. Too bad craft beer production peaked in 2019. “What that meant for the hop industry is that there were more acres in the ground than were needed,” says Bryan Pierce of Yakima Chief. Starting in 2023, farmers began cutting back acreage, with 41,564 acres harvested last year. Hop growers can no longer count on endless new breweries cropping up. To navigate this uncertain moment, I explored how hop farms are becoming beer gardens and campgrounds, doubling down on fragrant new proprietary varieties and diversifying into other crops to keep staff employed. It's a fascinating story of adaptation and evolution. Link to the PDF in the comments!
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Deniz Ataman
The EVERY Company, which manufactures #eggwhite and egg #protein ingredients via precision fermentation, closed on a $55 million Series D round, which arrives as avian flu cases begin to rise yet again with recent outbreaks confirmed in the US, UK and Japan, impacting egg supply and prices.
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