{"id":5648,"date":"2017-03-29T14:11:50","date_gmt":"2017-03-29T18:11:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsroom.carleton.ca\/?post_type=cu_story&p=5648"},"modified":"2025-10-17T11:00:03","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T15:00:03","slug":"buchipop-kombucha-project","status":"publish","type":"cu_story","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/story\/buchipop-kombucha-project\/","title":{"rendered":"Buchipop’s Kombucha Project"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n Buchipop's Kombucha Project\n <\/h1>\n \n <\/header>\n <\/div>\n\n \n <\/path>\n <\/path>\n <\/svg>\n <\/div>\n\n \n\n <\/div>\n<\/section>\n\n

Its fiercest advocates claim that drinking kombucha can help address a dizzying array of health problem<\/a>s, from diabetes to a weak libido, but Ottawa\u2019s Buchipop<\/a> isn\u2019t brewing the fermented, fizzy tea-based beverage as a folk remedy \u2014 they want to bring it to the soda-swilling masses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Carleton University microbiologist Myron Smith<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur focus isn\u2019t really on the health side,\u201d says Patricia Larkin, who started the company in early 2016 after five years as a chef at one of the city\u2019s top bistros.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cThat\u2019s part of who drinks kombucha, but we want soda drinkers to love it too. I see us as a lifestyle brand. An alternative to soda, with health benefits.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Kombucha traces its lineage back two millennia to ancient Manchuria, but despite this pedigree, little is known about exactly what it <\/em>is. That\u2019s because of kombucha\u2019s microbial complexity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Drinks such as wine and beer ferment a single yeast, but kombucha relies on a symbiotic community of bacteria and yeast in a complex fermentation process that produces an alcohol content of less than one perfect, similar to many other foods and beverages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To complicate matters, it uses an open system that allows external microbes to become part of that community, contributing unique local flavours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t try to keep it clean of environmentally introduced microbes,\u201d says Carleton microbiologist Myron Smith<\/a>, a genetics expert whose lab is working with Buchipop on a research project. \u201cDifferent regions have different microbes. So there won\u2019t be the same species, or the same strain, but there will be something that lives well in a region that does the same job.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

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Buchipop taps into a growing market<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

With global sales forecast to climb 25 percent every year until 2020, kombucha is a growing segment in a crowded beverage industry. In a food culture increasingly driven by the local, the drink\u2019s regional specificity is a marketing asset but a challenge to growth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To expand, Buchipop needs to produce consistent kombucha on a large scale, and a dynamic production process with unknown microbial components presents a hurdle to consistency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Smith\u2019s lab in the Nesbitt Biology Building is sequencing the DNA in Buchipop\u2019s symbiotic community of bacteria and yeast using a high throughput sequencer. By examining the metagenome \u2014 the genome of the entire community \u2014 the lab can identify microbial DNA to determine the proportion of a particular species in the mix, and identify exactly which components are present at each stage of fermentation.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\u201cYou can imagine a pie chart that says 10 percent of the cells are from this bacterium, and 20 percent from this yeast,\u201d Smith says.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

\u201cThen a week later, you can see how that community has changed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Achieving consistency with Carleton\u2019s expertise<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Understanding what is happening as kombucha ferments could enable Buchipop to better manage flavours in the end product, and achieve the consistency the growing company needs to expand beyond the roughly 40 local restaurants currently selling its products.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m very proud to be an Ottawa company,\u201d says Larkin, \u201cbut I\u2019d like to be an Ottawa export. For Buchipop, this is just the beginning.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Its fiercest advocates claim that drinking kombucha can help address a dizzying array of health problems, from diabetes to a weak libido, but Ottawa\u2019s Buchipop isn\u2019t brewing the fermented, fizzy tea-based beverage as a folk remedy \u2014 they want to bring it to the soda-swilling masses. \u201cOur focus isn\u2019t really on the health side,\u201d says […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":410,"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"cu_story_type":[13,1917],"cu_story_tag":[1919,1925],"class_list":["post-5648","cu_story","type-cu_story","status-publish","hentry","cu_story_type-research-discovery","cu_story_type-the-new-economy","cu_story_tag-faculty-of-science","cu_story_tag-research"],"acf":{"cu_post_thumbnail":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/5648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/cu_story"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/410"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/5648\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":98092,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story\/5648\/revisions\/98092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"cu_story_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story_type?post=5648"},{"taxonomy":"cu_story_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_story_tag?post=5648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}