Hello Ginger Root Beer! (the can at least!)

This is a very exciting day for ZEVIA, following a very exciting weekend! Today we are at the Ball Corporation facility in Fairfield, California where they make the beautiful cans that dress our ZEVIA. This process is always fun for us to watch and be a part of, but today it is particularly exciting because we just made the first ZEVIA Ginger Root Beer cans. They are gorg, of course. As we speak, we are making about 204,000 ZEVIA Ginger Root Beer cans. When the day is done, we will have made 4 times that (since we are making cans for all flavors). The Ball people are SO nice (Thanks to Scott, Emily, Bob - and everyone else here at Ball), the place is super clean and we got a 5 mile run in this morning, so it is a productive day all around.

Here is a bummer thing about traveling (for ZEVIA biz, or for pleasure). When I get on an airplane, I have to slam down the Zevia I am drinking (which is usually a cola). Then, from that point on, I am Zevia- less for the duration of the flight, until I land. When I land, it is then an issue of where I can get my next Zevia. Mind you, this company is not just for profit (though we all need to make a living), it was creating a drink for people like me who are diet soda addicts. OK, well I am no longer a diet soda addict, I still don't drink as much water as I should, but I DO drink 5 Zevia's a day, at least. So as you can imagine, going to an area where Zevia is not sold is really really problematic. I cannot wait for Wednesday, when I will be able to get FRESH Zevia off the line!!

We are all talking about Veg Fest which happened at the Seattle Center this past weekend. We had a booth there and we gave out almost 5,000 samples to some very cool people. (This is one reason I love these events, is that we have EVERY flavor chilled and ready to drink. If there is half or quarter of a can leftover from a poured sample, I can drink to my heart's content, but must allow for LOTS of bathroom trips). Anytime we get the opportunity to reach real ZEVIA drinkers (and potential ZEVIA drinkers), it is such a natural high for us. So now that we have more ZEVIA converts ... we gotta make more ZEVIA!!!

- Jessica

Zevia at VegFest 2008 in Seattle

This past weekend, Zevia participated in VegFest, a healthy vegetarian food festival at the Seattle Center.

These types of events are tremendous fun because I am so thrilled to see people loving ZEVIA! Moms, dads, kids, grandparents, and single people of all ages tried ZEVIA Natural Cola, Natural Orange, and Natural Twist - and everybody thought it was great. People who like sugared sodas and people who like diet all enjoyed Zevia.

We just launched this product in September, so I was surprised how many people are already regular ZEVIA users. Several told me they use ZEVIA as a mixer. Many said they had seen ZEVIA at the store, tried it, and kicked the diet soda habit because of ZEVIA. Then, of course, there were the many people who had never heard of ZEVIA but after trying it promised to buy ZEVIA regularly.

We handed out almost 5,000 samples. We let many VegFest attendees take full cans with them. I felt such pride walking the VegFest hall, seeing blue ZEVIA cans, and people enjoying ZEVIA everywhere.

The ZEVIA team is awesome. Michael (our business affairs director) and Stacey (our account executive) perfectly managed the logistics and detail planning. Jessica told her story of how ZEVIA was created to help her kick the diet soda habit. Anne and Junior were great at introducing ZEVIA to new fans. Jeff (our national sales manager) was excellent, as always.

This event was spectacular, and we’ll surely do many more community events. They’re so much fun, lots of people are exposed to ZEVIA, and ZEVIA tastes so good it puts smiles on faces.

The photo up-left is of Jeff and Anne at VegFest. Come see us all at the next event!

-Derek

Why Zevia

I founded Zevia with my great friend, Ian Eisenberg, and my wife, Jessica. Ian was the president and founder of a mobile content software company, and Jessica and I had a law firm. None of us had beverage or dietary supplement experience.

In 2005, the three of us were fairly active, participating in local races (like 10ks, half marathons, and triathlons). Jessica and I ate very healthy, but nonetheless Jessica was consuming several Diet Cokes per day. She complained of headaches and lethargy, which can be caused by aspartame (the sweetener in Diet Coke). Jessica’s diet cola habit really bothered me because I want to live forever with her, and I thought aspartame or Splenda could lead to many issues that might shorten her life. Ian had a similar addiction to diet soda and wanted a solution.

We learned about stevia, an herb many times sweeter than sugar which is native to the South America rainforest . It’s all natural, tastes great, zero calories, zero on the glycemic index, and healthy. When we heard about stevia, we didn’t believe it could be real because otherwise it would be in diet sodas.

We spent time researching stevia. We learned where to procure the highest quality stevia available. We learned the FDA allows stevia as an ingredient in a dietary supplement. We also learned that stevia is difficult to incorporate into liquid form because it often has a bitter aftertaste.

Ian, Jes, and I spent about 18 months and lots of money before we perfected the delicious taste that is today’s Zevia – Nature’s Answer to Diet Soda. We went through a lot of bad prototypes to get here, and to create Zevia we had to have a new formula invented. We now have a patent pending on the formula, so unless someone is going to infringe our anticipated patent, you cannot get a taste as good and natural as Zevia except from us.

We had to make Zevia. I had to cure Jessica’s diet soda habit, and she had to get me to stop harassing her about it. Now, Jessica and Ian drink nothing but Zevia, and we have succeeded in bringing a choice to soda fanatics everywhere.

That’s the quick story. The three of us eat, drink, and sleep Zevia. We are working hard to bring it to every town in the U.S., and then worldwide. We want everybody to kick the diet soda habit with Zevia!

-Derek