What inspired the creation of Leilo?
Sol, our CEO and founder, went on a family vacation in 2018 to Fiji and there he was introduced to kava by some of the locals that he had become friendly with. The locals invited him to a traditional kava ceremony where he drank kava with them and enjoyed it immensely. When he got back to the States, he realised that there wasn’t any good tasting kava – kava is very earthy and bitter. And so there wasn’t a way to make it taste good. He wanted to figure out a way to make it taste good, because he loved the benefits of it; the anti-stress and anti-anxiety, and all of the great things that come along with kava.
What kind of flavours did you put into it to make that taste better?
The first flavour that we did was just a lemon ginger. The reason being is because kava is very bitter. So, any sort of citrusy flavour does a really good job of counteracting the bitterness of it. With kava being also from, South Pacific and Samoa Islands and Fiji and Hawaii, these very tropical, beach-y, summery locations, he wanted to have more of a, tropical feel in the drink as well. Our first flavours were what we called the sunset variety, which was raspberry, blackberry, tangerine, mango, and lemon ginger. So all kind of citrusy flavours.
How does kava align with sort of modern hospitality trends, like wellness offerings or alcohol alternatives?
I think as the non-alcoholic industry and landscape develops, people are not only looking for non-alcoholic alternatives, but they’re also looking for those alternatives to have an effect. I think most people don’t drink alcohol for the taste – they drink it for the effect. So, if you’re going to get people to truly substitute alcohol or decrease how much alcohol they’re drinking, you do have to provide something that has some of the same positives of alcohol, which is increased social ability – being a little bit more relaxed in social settings. But, you want to take away all of the negatives from that and that’s what we feel like kava does well.
A lot of people on vacation, they’ll drink every night and then by the end of the vacation, you’re feeling pretty drowsy and maybe even a little stuffy and sick. Whether they drink coffee the whole time, or they break up alcohol and switch to kava every other night, it provides an alternative that they don’t have to sacrifice any of the fun that they want to have, and they don’t have to deal with the negatives the next day.
Do you source the kava and other ingredients sustainably?
One thing that we’re very proud of is we source all of our kava directly from the islands of Fiji and Vanuatu. What’s great about that is we know that we are supporting the smaller local farms that are providing the cover. Kava is a huge part of their economy, and we support that. Fiji, for example, I’m pretty sure it’s their number one export. As the kava industry grows, it’s it’s really great for their economy. To get an organic certification, all of your materials that go into your beverage have to come from manufacturing facilities that are able to be certified organic. Leilo cannot be certified organics primarily because we source from small farms in Fiji and Vanuatu. But, we’re not going to sacrifice the relationship with those farms to get an organic certification because we feel like that’s more important than being true to the source than having some organic certification, even though the kava that we use is organic.
Are there any new product developments or innovations in the pipeline at the minute that you could share with us?
Recently one thing is that all of our products recently have decreased the level of sugar that we have in them. We also added another sugar-free option as well. So, now we have three sugar-free and three with a little bit of sugar. We use no artificial sweeteners or colours or anything like that.
The other thing is we recently changed the kava extract input into the cans. We made it much more bioavailable and much more soluble. So the effects are enhanced pretty significantly. Lastly, is we added the stick packs – kava powder stick packs. It’s great for people on the go or if they’re able to put in their bags for vacation. It’s much more portable than a 12 ounce can. But, it’s basically the same dosage and same efficiency as the cans.
