Coca-Cola snaps up Australian kombucha maker Mojo

The Coca-Cola Company has announced that it has acquired Organic & Raw Trading Co., an Australian-based firm known for its Mojo brand of kombucha drinks.

The acquisition comes as the world’s largest drinks company has increasingly diversified its portfolio to include healthier options like sparkling waters and teas.

Organic & Raw's Mojo kombucha is a live culture, naturally fermented tea.

“In just over eight years, Organic & Raw has gone from selling Mojo at a local farmers’ market to producing one of Australia’s leading organic kombucha brands,” said Vamsi Mohan, president, Coca-Cola Australia.

“Our goal is to bring Mojo to more Australians by making it available in more places across the country."

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He added, “This is another important step in our company’s ongoing work to offer beverages for all occasions, which continues our evolution as a total beverage company.

“Across Australia, we now have more than 165 products and 25 brands. The addition of Mojo kombucha fits perfectly with the growing popularity of organic, probiotic drinks.”

Coca-Cola noted that Mojo co-founder Anthony Crabb and sales and marketing director Andrew Buttery will remain in their roles.

“When we started out, we couldn’t have imagined the incredible growth and consumer demand we see today,” Crabb said.

“As we continued to innovate, we soon realized that for us to take the business to the next level and provide probiotic beverages to even more people, we needed to find the right strategic partner. We found this partner in Coca-Cola.”

The announcement follows a series of purchases by the Coca-Cola Company.

Last month, the beverage firm bought Britain's largest coffee chain Costa Coffee for GBP£3.9bn (US$5.13bn) and a minority stake in sports drink brand BodyArmour.

The company also said that it was “closely watching” watching the fast-moving marijuana drinks market, in a recent statement.