How WOODS and Goodbuzz created a stir at the Auckland Food show.

Goodbuzz makes a non-alcoholic, brewed, probiotic soft drink that’s commonly known as kombucha. Though the kombucha recipe is ancient and thought to have originated in Manchuria, China over 2000 years ago, founder Amber has been experimenting for years with the recipe and has since put her own spin on it.

Through trial-and-error, she created a kombucha that tasted as smooth as a cider, without any of the vinegar-like sourness she’d associated with the drink. Alex, Amber’s husband and business partner, had his own kombucha experience through his grandmother’s own brews. This mutual love of the drink and the benefits that come with it, led to Goodbuzz Brewing being created.

Originally based in Wellington, the Goodbuzz team recently moved their operations to Tauranga. After months of manic growth, WOODS helped Goodbuzz – as well as their friend Soul Organics – design a trade stand to showcase its products at the 2017 Auckland Food Show.

Over 30,000 foodies attended the event over four days, with founder Alex Campbell saying the Goodbuzz stand saw a good chunk of that figure coming up to their stand and sampling their Booch. “It was insane, nonstop from 10am to 5pm sampling,” he says. “each day we went through around 20 cases of bottles in just samples alone – so over 240 bottles of samples per day.”

Goodbuzz is an old hand at food shows and has attended various ones around the country, including the Auckland Food Show in previous years. However, Alex says this time around, the bright orange trade stand WOODS helped design, emphasising the funky illustrations by Anna Johnstone, was especially attention grabbing.

“Everyone loved the branding and the look, it was very eye catching. It was well positioned to be seen from many directions, so everyone was drawn to it,” he says.

“Our brand was more noticeable, so we had people coming specifically to see us. We definitely got a lot more attention on years past from buyers and suppliers and retailers wanting to stock us.”

Aside from the attention-grabbing look, the biggest improvement on the Goodbuzz trade stand was the counter set-up, he says. In the past, the team served their ‘Booch’ off a long table, but this time around they had dual, one-metre countertops which were taller and not as deep.

“[WOODS designed] printed boards to go on the fronts of the counters and they stood out nicely, while the orange colour stood out from the white background and gave us some depth,” Alex says. “It was bright and welcoming.”

Alex says one highlight was the media attention it attracted.

Reporter Tristan Clayton from Herald Focus came by to do an interview, and a clip of Tristan and Alex having a chat in front of the trade stand made it into a compilation video of the Auckland Food Show. This was posted and seen by a huge amount of eyeballs on both on the NZ Herald’s website and the Herald Focus Facebook page – plus on our WOODS Facebook page too!

“Other than that, there was a lot of supermarket buyers coming by, which is good timing because we’re just going into supermarkets now,” Alex says. “Those are the highlights other than the standard buzz we create, but it’s always fun working with the customers.”