People of Northwest Arkansas
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People of Northwest Arkansas
From Homemade Brews to Business Success: Krista Cloud's Natural State Beverage Journey
Krista Cloud shares how she transformed from a farm-dwelling, home-brewing mom to the owner of Natural State Beverage Company, creating craft kombucha and functional beverages for a growing sober-curious market.
@naturalstatebeveragecompany
https://www.buzzsprout.com/2241892/support
danielle, yes, have you ever had kombucha before? I've not. I find that crazy because I, I guess I tried kombucha like a long time ago. My boss was like kind of a I don't know. She was an organic girly, she was into all that kind of natural stuff, whole foods, and she sent me out one day to go get one for her. And she's like go pick one up for you, and it was the first time I'd ever had it and I had no idea actually what it was really, I didn't even know what to expect honestly, I feel really dumb saying this, but I don't actually know what it is.
Speaker 2:I've always associated it with tea, and I'm not a huge tea person, so that's probably why. That's probably why I haven't tried it. So I just assumed it's like tea.
Speaker 1:So I think there's a lot of people like you, I bet, that don't actually know Like they've heard of it, but they don't know what it is. But our guest Krista Cloud. Good morning, yes, good morning, yes, good morning. She's with the Natural State Beverage Company and she can tell you what it is because she makes it.
Speaker 2:I would love to hear what it is yeah. Tell me why I should try it.
Speaker 4:Okay, well, you should try our kombucha, because it's like the gateway kombucha. But no really, kombucha is great. It's a fermented tea. It has naturally occurring probiotics, b vitamins, acetic acids. It's typically a low sugar carbonated drink, so all right, yeah yeah, uh-huh, uh-huh, she did bring some kombucha and well, danielle and brock, you know what they say cans of it the early bird.
Speaker 2:But you know what I'm trying to get the worm. That's true, the early bird.
Speaker 1:Hey, I was almost on you were only one minute late, which, I have to say, is actually progress. This is huge progress.
Speaker 4:This is big progress for you. But not on time enough to get a kombucha. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Sorry To get a kombucha, maybe next time. Next time, or I'll have to just go pick some up myself.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:But I am trying the Dark Cherry Premium craft soda and it's delicious, so all right. So today our guest is krista cloud, and she is one of the owners founders of natural state beverage company here, in arkansas, northwest arkansas, specifically yeah, yeah, okay, so our production facility is out of rogers, arkansas, right?
Speaker 4:so our first year we did start in bentonville, but okay, backpedal and get back to that in just a second.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we'll backpedal, because that's Daniel's favorite thing. Let's take it back.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So let's start with our first and favorite question that we ask all of our guests is what brought you to Northwest Arkansas?
Speaker 4:Oh my gosh. Okay, so I'm a military brat so I've kind of grown up all over the place. I spent half my childhood in upstate New York, half my child in central Missouri. I met my husband at a summer camp in Southwest Missouri and we got married. We lived in Southwest Missouri and he's like hey, I want to take you to Arkansas to go rock climbing. I said what?
Speaker 1:I was like I heard banjos in my head.
Speaker 4:I'm like what is rock climbing.
Speaker 1:Were you thinking of a certain movie when you said that I was? I was, but that was my only idea of Arkansas.
Speaker 4:I was like I don't know what this man's taking me to, but I went with it. That's like the story of our life is I'm always following this man on every adventure. So I came to Arkansas. We went to Horseshoe Canyon, which is a climbing area.
Speaker 1:I climbing area. I fell in love with it. They hiked on the buffalo. It was gorgeous. I was like I love buffalo is enough to make you fall in love with arkansas.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, the natural beauty here is amazing. So fell in love with arkansas. Fell in love with the movement that you know arkansas has, with mountain biking, rock climbing, hiking, all of it, and we became what you'd call like weekend warriors. So we were spending every weekend traveling from missouri to come do whatever hobby was on our tick list for the weekend. Yeah, so we lived in southwest missouri. We decided that we were like gonna dabble in hosting events on the weekend, and at that time we had already been like making kombucha in our house. I'm a little more crunchy than he is, so I was like making the kombucha you had a scoby.
Speaker 1:Yes, I know whatoby. You don't know what a scoby is. Okay. Well, you said it because I never went that far, but I thought about it.
Speaker 2:We should tell our listeners take a break and define scoby Scoby.
Speaker 1:Not scoby like scooby doo. No, scoby A scoby.
Speaker 4:You need a scoby to make kombucha at home. Is it a pot, uh so scoby stands for symbiotic culture of bacteria in yeast. Okay, is it like a disc? Okay so that is not so the scoby refers to. People think it's the little jelly-like creature, yeah, um, the pellicile, but it's the starter tea. That is the scoby.
Speaker 1:Oh, I didn't know that. I thought it was a dish. I mean it is.
Speaker 4:So that grows due to the starter tea. So you have the starter tea that's already got all the probiotics and everything that makes up kombucha. And just for the listeners, kombucha is very closely related to vinegar. It's like a sister to vinegar. So when you try kombucha it's going to have more of a vinegary taste, but they're not the same thing, it's not apple cider vinegar.
Speaker 4:It's not white vinegar, but it is within the vinegar family. So, yeah, I had several jars of kombucha in my closet, um, and it looks like. So this pellicile grows on top of the kombucha right Cause it's protecting it. So it grows this little like, like a jellyfish. All right because it's protecting it, so it grows this little like like a jellyfish.
Speaker 1:All right, that's the only way I can like I know what you're talking about. Sometimes in a like a jar you can kind of see remnants got like the strings hanging down. Don't google it, guys just just drink it and I promise you, I like you better than I can.
Speaker 2:Yeah don't think about it, close your eyes and just swallow it down.
Speaker 4:Yeah, danielle, I'm like okay, so I'm actually having backflashes. The first time somebody introduced me to kombucha my friend Candice, years ago we were at this health food store and she's like you should try this. This is so good for you, gts, right.
Speaker 1:It was a GTs.
Speaker 4:It was the green GTs.
Speaker 1:And I was like okay green.
Speaker 4:And of course she says don't shake it. And what did I do? I 100 shook it before I opened it. So I then was covered in this nasty smelling vinegar thing and then I drank it and I was like this is absolutely disgusting that was my first experience because the gts a long time ago it did taste just like vinegar.
Speaker 1:Yours actually is a good gateway because it's it doesn't have that vinegar like taste. To me it just tastes really like light and refreshing, like yeah it'll.
Speaker 4:It hits you a little bit later, but yeah, yeah, yeah, so we ease you in gateway kombucha ease you in I like the gateway term.
Speaker 1:So you're making your closet, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:So I was making it in my closet. My husband was making his own soda. My husband, he goes all in on any hobby he does. So we had, like our own homemade kegerator. He had stopped drinking, so he was playing around with different options. So we decided I'm going to go off here a little bit we decided to start hosting events. We were really into bikepacking at the time, are you familiar?
Speaker 1:with bikepacking yes, bikepacking, yes, okay.
Speaker 4:Okay, so listeners. So bikepacking, essentially, in a very simple terms, is when you pack or load your bike down with camping gear and everything you would need. You go out to a destination point, you ride there, you're self-sufficient, you come back. We wanted to create a semi-supported experience, so we actually took the kombucha and soda into the woods, and food and everything else and had this event. And people were like, oh my gosh, this is really good, you should make this. And I was like, maybe, and so we loved hosting, but that's a lot of work and this area is super saturated with the biking. So we did, we pivoted and we're like okay, how do you start a beverage company? Youtube, like figuring it out. In all honesty, it's been amazing.
Speaker 4:I knew some of the local business owners here in the area. Mark Bray met with him first was like hey, I want to do this thing. And he's like well, I don't have the space, but let me hook you up with somebody else. Bike rack was phenomenal. They subleased to us for the first year. We bought all old brew equipment from them. Um, they even asked us. They're like well, do you want us to sell your product? And we're like we didn't want to ask, but please, yes, yes and so, um, yeah, we sold our 60 acre farm in southwest Missouri and put it all into the business and moved here to Arkansas.
Speaker 1:Wow, yeah, yeah, so you went all in.
Speaker 4:Yeah, we went all in and that's kind of how my husband and I are with everything. We're like, okay, 200% or nothing.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 4:Like what do you got to lose? You got one life, that's true.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's true.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so we started making kombucha craft sodas. We started with three flavors and we expanded from there. Of course, we've made some changes along the way, and so that started in 2021. We sold at the farmer's markets is where we first started and, yeah, we've just grown from there. We quickly realized that the 800 square feet at Bike Rack was not enough space. Bought our own property in downtown rogers. It's production only. Please don't come knock on our door.
Speaker 4:tap service uh, we, I don't serve there, but you can, you know, find a whole list of wholesalers online yeah so, yeah, we realized that there was you know the a need for non-alcoholic drinks that were good, um, and not just a sparkling water. I'm not a sparkling water fan, so we wanted something else. We were showing up to the climbing and cycling events non-alcoholic drinks that were good, um, and not just a sparkling water. I'm not a sparkling water fan, so we wanted something else. We were showing up to the climbing and cycling events, any outdoor events, and we're like okay, we still want to socialize and like, hold something in our hand like you were talking earlier.
Speaker 4:I want to sit by the pool, but I don't always want to drink an alcoholic beverage and so that's. That's where this was born. It's just like that need for something else, something like authentic ingredients, and I love cooking, I love hosting, so all of this like came into play, where I was like okay, let's make really good drinks.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's awesome, yeah, it's really good so far, what I'm drinking is really good the dark cherry.
Speaker 2:Yes, I know that looks really good, it's really good over ice cream too it's like a cherry pie. Put it over some vanilla ice cream my kids will like I'm drinking the mojito I'm like really jealous that you're drinking the mojito, but if you haven't, had kombucha before, I'd probably go with like a fruity a fruity one first okay, good mango pineapple broccolato yeah, broccolato
Speaker 1:is that it's my kombucha you guys launched at a really good time though, because I feel like during COVID, you know, everyone was at home and then kind of after they were like okay, maybe I should be a little sober. Curious Cause I think a lot of people were drinking heavily during COVID Everybody was trying to survive, survive.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I get it. And then I think people were like okay, it seemed like the whole mocktail and sober curious movement like kind of became really I don't want to say trendy, but like a lot of people are just really like curious about being healthier with their choices or not drinking as much, or being more like mindful about when they're enjoying an alcoholic beverage, and so it seems like it's really popular now the mocktail.
Speaker 1:everywhere I go, there's always something on the menu a lot of them are kombucha based, and then, just you know, people that are pregnant or maybe in recovery would like different options or feel like they belong there too, or they can have something cool yeah to drink, yeah, just something in their hands so they can feel connected to the experience around them yes yeah, yeah, there's actually.
Speaker 4:There's actually the Sober Curious Movement, like all things start has started on the East and West coast. They have like sober bars right, which I think is a really cool idea. We don't have that quite yet here, but I will say that our products do really well in some of the local breweries. Yeah, so that's nice.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I like to see those options there, because sometimes we'll get invited to like oddly enough, like adult birthday parties there where people bring their kids or whatever. And maybe I'm just not like a day drinker. I don't like to drink during the day, I don't know, it makes me really tired. I have kids, we all have kids, so I don't know. And then if I'm out in the sun it just totally like fries me if I have like one drink.
Speaker 1:So I was telling her that when I'm by the pool I get sick of sparkling water too. I don't want you know.
Speaker 4:I want something that has some like flavor, yeah, or something that's good for me, that like elevates my mood, the flavor and like the expectation people have now for just like their drinks, to have some sort of function. Right and that was what we were seeing is people don't want to. Just like you know, when you drink a beer, you have this expectation of feeling a buzz. Um, when you drink, for us drinking like a sparkling water, we're like, okay, we're just drinking this to drink something, but there's no like added function to it right so, yeah, we're dabbling a little bit in that I didn't bring one today, but we do have a new product line, that's a mushroom tonic um which sounds weird.
Speaker 1:It's really good no, is it like? Is it ashwagandha, or is it like right, reishi, reishi uh reishi is one of the mushrooms, uh, but that's not in this line.
Speaker 4:This one, specifically, is lion's mane, okay yeah yeah, so this one is proven to increase your focus and energy and so yeah, we lower the sugar down, we use the lion's mane. It's definitely like a functional beverage yeah, wow, what does it like?
Speaker 2:a dentogenic? Do you just add different flavors, or does it have its own flavor?
Speaker 4:yeah, so this one's cherry you don't want to just no, I wouldn't think so.
Speaker 2:I've only had it like in coffee, I've only had it in other things oh, yeah, yeah, there's a lot of coffees with the nootropics now, yes, yeah.
Speaker 1:I once bought Lion's Mane mushroom at the farmer's market and I brewed it and made it and then I froze it and I would add it to stuff. But I don't think I was very good at it because nothing I made tasted that great Look at you being all crunchy.
Speaker 1:Oh, my husband and kids looked at me when I was in there, like brewing mushrooms. They were like they thought I was. They already call me the organic mom and sometimes they're all just like you're on your own with this one. They'll drink kombucha and like do different things, but they were like no, we're hard pass.
Speaker 4:I love that my husband calls it my woo-woo stuff. Anytime somebody gets sick, my husband's like, okay, you've got 24 hours with your woo-woo stuff and then we're going to the doctor.
Speaker 1:The modern day medicine. I'm like, you know, putting onion and honey. I'm like, just give it a day. My grandma's texting me about how much raw garlic you have to eat.
Speaker 2:And Elliot's, my husband's, like I am not eating raw garlic. I'm like, okay, give me some Tylenol please.
Speaker 1:Antibiotics Antibiotics I came from a grandma that's not crunchy, but she was a farm girl and so she has. She's never like had vaccines or like takes medicine, like she won't take anything. I don't know. She's almost 90.
Speaker 2:I'm not saying that works for everyone, but she's got some sort of farm girl remedy for pretty much everything I mean they talk about being like even just people who have allergies and other kind of conditions when you grow up in a place like a farm or somewhere that is going to expose you more to allergens to different types of bacteria.
Speaker 1:That's why I am terrible.
Speaker 2:It builds your immune system.
Speaker 1:I was in the city. I had smog.
Speaker 2:Man we missed out.
Speaker 4:I grew up in.
Speaker 2:California. Lots of smog, although allergies here are awful. Sorry I've been dying lately.
Speaker 1:We are off topic. Last.
Speaker 4:Friday the allergies, with the wind and everything it was so bad, I was on a field trip with my kids and we went to the tiger sanctuary and, like the, even the person leading our group had to like bow out. She's like I can't do it anymore and so I had to come replace it. It was rough.
Speaker 2:It's rough. It is rough. There's a lot going on.
Speaker 1:Okay, so you have kids, so we'll back up to your story. You started, you launched it. Um, you make it in downtown Rogers. Meanwhile, talk to us about starting a business with kids. What was that like?
Speaker 4:So I had a romantic expectation of what it would look like. So when we lived in Missouri, my idea was we were going to live off the grid.
Speaker 4:I had my like quarter acre of garden, like it was going to be very. I had this romantic vision of what it was like, but it was very lonely, right. I had two kids. It was going to be very. I had this romantic vision of what it was like, but it was very lonely, right. I had two kids. It was very remote. I came to Arkansas to play. It was very different. So when I moved here I was really excited about the community we were building for our kids. Currently my kids are.
Speaker 4:My daughter just turned nine last week and my son is seven, so they were really young when we started back in 2021. I thought I was going to continue homeschooling them while also running a business.
Speaker 2:Girl, you had some lofty goals.
Speaker 4:There was a lot of tears, and I started getting my gray hairs that year too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I commend you for trying. Yes, for sure.
Speaker 2:Try, as you should try, and see if you can do it. You don't know, unless you can't, it's okay too. You should try and see if you can do it. You don't know unless you try.
Speaker 4:If you can't, it's okay too. You know, like it's okay. It was an insane romantic idea. I look at my husband, I'm like how did we survive that year? Anyways, you're just in it, yeah. Yeah, my children now are in a school that they love and it's great. They get dropped off at eight o'clock, I pick them up at three o'clock and I have time to work.
Speaker 4:You have space to work, yeah, yeah yeah, but they've been a part of the journey because, like, every time we make a flavor, we make it in our kitchen, right like we start, and we just like start working with ingredients that we're familiar with and then creating something that tastes good. So it has to have, has to go through us, our children, our friends, our family, like everybody, has to approve it before it even makes it into production, and so the kids have been a big part of like with the kombucha, especially like people are like this is really good kombucha.
Speaker 1:I'm like, yeah, my kids have to approve it before it comes out Like you need to put that on here. Kid approved.
Speaker 4:Kid approved.
Speaker 2:Like me, for adults, but like kid approved. Yeah, sounds like something we could put in peekaboo magazine. Oh yeah, boo magazine, oh yeah, I think. So we'll talk about that later. But what do they think of the?
Speaker 4:mushroom tonic. I love it. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, and so I I feel like I should call it something different, because people get weird when I call it a mushroom they like envision, like going to the market and then like having to cook up these mushrooms to taste good. So the mushroom um. So we actually collaborated with a business out of Conway and they use sound to extract the mushroom properties.
Speaker 1:Wait, sound, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I've heard of people putting like these little rods and mushrooms and it makes music. Oh, I've not heard of what. Okay, I blew your mind. You just blew my mind. Okay, first, you're both blew my mind. Okay, first, you're both blowing my mind she's got singing mushrooms I have.
Speaker 4:I want to hear what you have to say first no, I just apparently they have, I'm thinking of a whole other kind of mushroom.
Speaker 1:No, apparently mushrooms. No, this is not psilocybin. Um, it can be like in the forest. They're all like interconnected in a network and they have these electric I guess, and I'm not like I don't know the exact science behind this, but they have these little like. They communicate through these like pulses and if you put like these metal rods in it, you can actually like and hook it up to a musical device you can actually make music with. That is so cool, that's really so like. It's actually the forest floor is really more connected and communicates more than you think.
Speaker 4:Yeah, how trees can tell each other there's disease coming, and I only know this because of TikTok so.
Speaker 2:We should fact check that we should. Yeah, I was about to say that Maybe we should fact check this.
Speaker 1:You should absolutely fact check that, but anything with sound so they use this.
Speaker 4:They actually came to our facility a couple weeks ago and brought their machine and it just releases and it hurts my ears when they were doing it, but it releases such a high frequency that it starts to break down the mushroom into teeny, tiny particles. Whoa, the science beyond that? I have no idea but, but they are able to put it in like an aqueous solution and then we're able to put that into our drinks.
Speaker 1:That is incredible. I don't even know what to say. I'm just trying to think about what, like I was trying to visualize how that whole scene of like playing that like it makes me think of a pitch that would make a dog like only a dog could hear. Is that, like what you mean?
Speaker 4:Yeah, but this one you could definitely hear and it hurt my ears, but I don't understand what it is. It was a high technology contraption. They say that sound extracted like food items, like that, it becomes more bioavailable for your body to absorb. Whoa.
Speaker 1:I got to try this.
Speaker 2:I want to try this.
Speaker 1:I can't wait to try this.
Speaker 2:I'm really fascinated by nootropics, nootropics, nootropics by nootropics. What is it?
Speaker 1:Nootropics, nootropics, okay, and explain what that is, because I know the products. But what does that mean exactly?
Speaker 4:It kind of encompasses like adaptogens and mushrooms and we're not talking about just to clarify, this is medicinal mushrooms, not psychedelics, so I am not putting psychedelics in our beverages.
Speaker 1:That's not what we're here to talk about today.
Speaker 2:I'm really glad that we yes, we will keep confirming that Keep confirming what this is, yeah, so like medicinal mushrooms, can range from lion's mane.
Speaker 4:You mentioned reishi earlier. I love that one.
Speaker 1:I'm glad you clarified how to say it, because I was like reishi reishi.
Speaker 4:Yes, I'm reishi. I could also be saying it wrong, but for today we'll just say that Okay.
Speaker 2:It's.
Speaker 4:Reishi, turkey, tail, cordyceps mataki. Those are some of your more medicinal mushrooms.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I like is ashwagandha one.
Speaker 4:Ashwagandha is an adaptogen. I don't believe it's a mushroom, but you'll find it in a lot of like the nootropic blends.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's mushroom okay, but you'll find it in a lot of like the nootropic blends. Yeah, yeah, um supposed to relax, for mental health too, yeah a lot of good stuff a lot of good stuff, yeah, okay so, and then kombucha, because it's fermented.
Speaker 1:Is that what makes it good for your gut, the bacteria?
Speaker 4:yeah, so it has and and the the benefits is it's naturally occurring probiotic, so it's not a man-made probiotic. It's natural, so it's going to be better for your gut in that it's helping balance everything in there and it's alive, right. So, like our kombucha, you have to keep refrigerated. It's not a pasteurized product, it's a living product. So if you were to take it out, I mean you could restart your own kombucha with our kombucha, like if you're really you know, cover it and put it in room temperature.
Speaker 4:It is flavored, so it's going to be weaker, but the idea behind it, it's still a living product. So when you consume products that are still alive, obviously it's going to be better for you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. How much are you supposed to drink? Because I used to just like drink a ton I love this question. Well, I only ask because I used to drink like a lot and then someone was like you're only supposed to drink like half, Like for the benefit. But I mean, I've been told that you can drink what you want, but like for the benefit you don't need as much as like you think.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I'm not a medical professional, but for new let's say you wanted to try some I would recommend starting with eight ounces first. Okay, just to see how your gut handles it, because everybody's different, right? I don't know what your diet's going to be. Start with eight ounces and see how you handle it. I think with anything too much of a good thing is not a good thing. Yeah, my husband likes to overdo things, so he'll have like four cans a day but it feels good, his gut is cleared out.
Speaker 4:Yeah, he is healthy yeah, sometimes he'll drink the kombucha he is alive that goes past the expiration date and I can tell I'm like you've had the kombucha that's really fermented oh, I know exactly what you're saying I usually have about 12 um if I get the jar.
Speaker 2:Ounces, not cans. No, yeah, 12 ounces. Yeah, we'll clarify.
Speaker 1:If I get the bigger ones, I will just drink half.
Speaker 4:Those are like the 16 ounce bottles, yeah.
Speaker 1:I will just drink half a one, just because save it for later Save it for later. No, I just was curious because it blew my mind, because, like, for so long I just drank, I just would literally after yoga I'd chug one down because that was just like hot yoga, it was so refreshing. And then someone was like you're drinking way too much kombucha.
Speaker 2:I was like I am. Did it make you sick?
Speaker 4:no, I think if you feel good, then you can continue. If you don't have any bad side effects, headaches or anything, no, you, just you do you yeah you do.
Speaker 2:All right, krista, tell us about how has this transformed your life, like personally, from a business side of things, starting your own beverage company. How has this transformed your life?
Speaker 4:I think I mentioned earlier that my romantic idea of what I wanted my life to look like was living on a 60-acre farm raising my children. But I think with all things, as we just look at things, we're like this sounds great, this is what I want to do. And then you realize that your priorities and your values shift. And so when we had this idea to create the beverage company, I still was under this illusion that I was going to be mainly a stay-at-home mom. Right, but my husband looked at me. He's like okay, to do this, I need a little bit of help. Like I need you to help with the paperwork on the legality side. I'm like cool, got it, but when it came to the first sales meeting, he still has a full-time job outside of natural state. When it came to the first sales meeting, he's like hey, any chance you can do this one. I'm like sure.
Speaker 4:And it transformed my opinion of myself and what I was able to do. I wasn't just like taking care of the kids or you know, my background was remodeling homes and I did accounting and different things. Now I'm actually leading a company, which wasn't something that I thought I was capable of or that I really wanted to do. I am normally a pretty shy person, but this business has like pushed me way out of my comfort zone to where I'm like seeking out being, you know, on a podcast and talking to people, or being at events and being the face, or like, oh my gosh, putting myself on Instagram and social media because apparently people love that.
Speaker 4:And I start putting my face and people love it and I'm like yeah it's not my favorite thing.
Speaker 4:I don't. I don't enjoy it, but I realize the necessity of consumers being able to relate to the people behind the product. So, yeah, I think that my opinion of myself, the reality of what it takes to run a business and the connections along the way you know I saw you had Amber on the other day with Coffee you know, making those relationships with amazing people like her and it's like, well, how did you start? And most of us are like, well, we didn't really plan on doing this.
Speaker 4:Like right, we didn't dream as a kid. Most of us didn't dream of owning a business. It just somehow we've leapfrogged and one thing has led to another to where we are now, you know yeah um, yeah, I think that's it. I think it's allowed me to also, like, shrink my inner circle of people to who I can rely on and support me.
Speaker 1:Um, that's been really cool the energy fillers in your life yeah, yeah, and then just our family.
Speaker 4:We spend a lot of quality time together, which I really enjoy, like anytime we have the opportunity to go for a family bike ride or, you know, a vacation or something like it is just we feel like a unit yeah, we get things done together so yeah, I love that yeah
Speaker 1:I love that you talked about how it changed your opinion of yourself, because I do feel like a lot of the limitations we put just come from ourselves. You know, like I don't know, or like in that imposter syndrome, and then you're just like, I guess, every day I just have to keep doing it until I believe that, like, this is who I am, like, yeah, that I can do these things, and then, yeah, shifting those expectations, you're like I thought I'd be here, but this is happening and I, I'm gonna go with this.
Speaker 4:Yeah, no I mean every day feels hard. Some days I wake up and I'm like what am I doing?
Speaker 1:you're like, oh my gosh, I'm doing this.
Speaker 4:People are relying on me to get this done. Wait, I don't feel like I'm 37. I still feel like.
Speaker 1:I'm same girl. I'm about to turn 40 and I'm freaking out. How am I this old now you?
Speaker 4:look amazing the kombucha.
Speaker 2:It is the kombucha Botox and kombucha gonna talk about.
Speaker 1:I know, look, think you're poison, all right yeah, absolutely absolutely. I know I should not do that anymore, but it's okay.
Speaker 2:Um, I know I should be all natural it's okay to be a little not natural, yeah wait, there's balance balance you have a bottle full of iced coffee and then a kombucha.
Speaker 4:Next to you, there is balance and there is balance in all of this I have a glass of water or not glass?
Speaker 2:I have a my water bottle my jug of water and some dark cherry soda, although it is, I like how it says crisp, clean, classic caffeine free, although I do love caffeine. Just kidding, we are getting off topic again. How are we doing this?
Speaker 1:So you sell in Northwest Arkansas?
Speaker 4:Well, we also sell in Central Arkansas too.
Speaker 1:Oh, you do Okay.
Speaker 4:Just a couple of accounts, but we do have some accounts there.
Speaker 2:Awesome. Where do you sell in central Arkansas?
Speaker 4:I've got a list.
Speaker 2:Oh, a long list.
Speaker 4:Well, yeah, so our thing is we've tried to grow our company organically and to grow as we can. So currently I handle distribution. So once a month I drive to Little Rock and make all of my deliveries. So I'd say some of my bigger accounts would be like Bell Urban Farms, which is in Conway. They have our kombucha on tap. The cutest little shop all locally made and locally sourced items and then Lost 40 is another huge account. The Rube.
Speaker 4:Cafe, the Green Corner Store, Flora Jeans. I'm sure there's some I'm not thinking of right now, but yeah.
Speaker 1:And locally store floor jeans.
Speaker 4:Um, I'm sure there's some, I'm not thinking of right now, but yeah, and locally allen's, because I was just there allen's and aiken's and the co-op in fayetteville will be the grocery stores that you're looking for. And then I have smaller accounts. So, like confident coffee um, we have bike rack brewing twostore, 211 Coffee Shop, sunny's on Second, yeah, we just have a. That's awesome. We have probably 40 to 45 active accounts in Arkansas.
Speaker 1:I'm glad you settled that it's Aikens, because I really don't know. I didn't know, we're learning a lot of pronunciation today. Not like the Diet Aikens. Uh-huh, there's no t yeah, akins, akins and reishi reishi yeah, and nobody's mispronounced kombucha today.
Speaker 4:That's like one of my favorite what do they?
Speaker 1:say um kombucha oh, I have heard that um kombuchi kombucha.
Speaker 4:There's been so many, I need to make like a blooper reel this summer when I go to the farmer's market.
Speaker 1:I kind of like kombucha, though. Kombucha because it's like kombucha tea and just kombucha tea, just kombucha, you know uh, I know that has to drive you crazy.
Speaker 4:It's, it's not, it used to, but now I think it's. I think it's kind of cute I.
Speaker 1:I have heard kombucha, a lot Kombucha. Maybe that's a southern thing.
Speaker 4:Yeah, my father-in-law called it kombucha forever, and I'm like we own a kombucha company.
Speaker 1:You have to say it right. The kombucha is very good and they just don't even it doesn't register. It's kind of cute, though, I know.
Speaker 4:And then we made t-shirts. This weekend we were at Rula 3. I'm not sure if you're familiar with it the biking event. We've been sponsors for the past four years. We made t-shirts and they said Booch Babe. A lot of people like to just refer to it as Booch.
Speaker 2:The Booch.
Speaker 1:That's cute, we like to end our show with what your favorite thing about Northwest Arkansas is.
Speaker 4:I really want to say it's the outdoor world, because that's what drew me here, created the business and everything, but honestly I think it's the community. Yeah, the local businesses and then the people that live here are the heart and soul of what northwest arkansas is yeah, yeah, I agree.
Speaker 1:I agree too. Tell our listeners where they can follow you I know like your handles your if you have a website where they can find you online. I know we already went over where they can buy, so that's yeah, so we're most active on instagram, natural state beverage company same.
Speaker 4:With the web page natural state beverage companycom, you can find all of our vendor listings about us, our story yeah, follow us. If you enjoy the product, let us know, because that really fuels us. It means a lot. We read every message and sometimes I'll even print it and put it on our doors just as a reminder on the hard days. Hey, we'll like this, keep going.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I'm going to take a picture of you now.
Speaker 1:Well, thanks for coming on, Krista, and thanks for the beverages.
Speaker 3:They're so good. You're welcome. Thank you for having me platform where you listen. For more information about today's guests and the show, please check the show notes. Thanks for listening.