#162 Allison Sodha - The Better Boba

Meaningful Marketplace Podcast

Boba has been a highly popular addition to tea drinks worldwide for some decades now. Originating in Taiwan in the 1980s, it has taken the US by storm, served in restaurants, tea bars and sold in grocery stores. The popularity encouraged mass production. Enter Allison Sodha, founder of Better Boba, because Allison believes people deserve the best boba. If you are not familiar, boba is tea with pearl-sized nuggets that have a mild flavor offering a heartier drink than tea alone. The preservatives and additives that make up most packaged boba pearls in the US don’t match up to the natural, artisanal boba sold in Taiwan. Besides taste, the mass manufactured boba are not as healthy as those made with a few, simple, natural ingredients. That is Allison’s mission, to put soft, supple, easy to digest original recipe boba in the hands of US customers. It’s not only the health of the customers that is of interest to Allison, it’s also the health of the planet. She works to constantly develop more sustainable manufacturing and distribution processes. In addition, Better Boba has all-natural packaging to further stress her passion for sustainability. This all began with Allison’s tea shop, where the boba distributed through food services seemed hard for some of their customers to digest. It started her on a worldwide tour of the various manufacturing processes and led her to discover the artificial ingredients and shortcuts taken to produce boba faster and in larger quantities. The business reasons for this practice were rational, but Allison was not buying in. She went on a mission to put authentic boba within reach of the public by not only offering her products through participating tea shops, but also on grocery shelves where the consumer could take the boba home and enjoy the real thing. She is raising the education level and the boba pallet of the consumer. The pandemic also wound up being a friend to Better Boba. As boba supplies dried up with the withering supply chain, tea shops reached out to Better Boba just to stay in business. This made Allison realize that a US manufacturing facility up to her standards was needed and she embarked in the effort. This also opened up new possible worlds for people to enjoy healthy boba. It can be included in snacks and other versatile additions and now the company offers both drinks and snacks. You can shop for all those products online on: https://thebetterboba.com/. Follow Allison on IG: @thebetterboba. Our hosts: Twitter - @sarahmasoni and @spicymarshall, Instagram - @masoniandmarshall.

Thank you for Listening to The Meaningful Marketplace Podcast with your hosts, Sarah Masoni of Oregon State University's Food Innovation Center and Sarah Marshall, owner of Marshall's Haute Sauce. Connect with us on Instagram @meaningfulmarketplacepodcast.

Audio engineer, mixer, and podcast editor: Haley Bowers
Show logo was designed by Anton Kimball of Kimball Design
Production Coordinator: Kayleen Veatch