How Sobah Beverages connects with culture – without alcohol

Husband-and-wife team Clinton and Lozen Schultz, from Yugambeh country on the Gold Coast, have found a way to spread awareness of their Aboriginal culture through their own non-alcoholic craft beer brand, Sobah Beverages.The Sobah founders quit drinking and set about changing consumers’ views on socialising without alcohol.Here, Clinton and Lozen share with Inside FMCG how the brand has incorporated native ingredients into its brews and how they are challenging stereotypes about Aboriginal people. Lozen and Clinton Schulz.Inside FMCG: Why is it important that your brand raises awareness of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and what are some of the ways you do that?Clinton Shultz: We are fortunate enough in Australia to have some of the oldest ongoing knowledge systems known to humankind right here. As Aboriginal people, we have thrived here on this continent through multiple ice ages and hot periods. We have witnessed the mass extinction of megafauna and survived through countless natural disasters. We have done this in ways that have been forever mindful of the interconnectedness we share with everything around us and have understood our importance and integral role in maintaining a natural equilibrium. I truly believe that as species, as human beings, we need to allow ourselves to be guided by these old knowledges if we are to survive and thrive into the future in peace and harmony with each other and everything mother earth holds. Unfortunately, many Australians hold a negative stereotypical viewpoint of Aboriginal people and communities. Sobah gives us a platform to start conversations with many Australians and others from abroad about the positive aspects of Aboriginal society, the benefits of our food and medicinal knowledge and more generally the beauty of our natural environment and the wonder of our philosophies. Inside FMCG: Can you explain a bit about Sobah’s philosophy and how it’s based on Gamilaraay lore ‘dhiriya gamil’?CS: There are dozens of guiding principles entrenched in our lore as Aboriginal people. For myself as Gamilaraay, these are part of ‘dhiriya gamil’. For Sobah, we have identified three to form a part of our mission and values. These include respecting people, place, and the environment; now and across time; understanding and working towards fulfilling responsibilities that we are connected to, and engaging in positive reciprocity with each other and with the place. This means we have a responsibility to give back wherever we can; to share our knowledge and experience with others; to create opportunities for others; to encourage sustainable and healthy ways of living and to assist in bringing about positive changes that improve wellness for self, other and place. Inside FMCG: How do you help change the community’s views on socialising without alcohol and the dependence on alcohol to have a good time?CS: Hopefully we help people to see that you can successfully engage with others, have fun, celebrate, commiserate or whatever else without alcohol. We are fortunate to have plenty of opportunities through Sobah to raise awareness and to educate people. Authenticity is key to the brand and to our reputation, so I think it helps that many people have followed our story and can see that we live the things we speak about and that we are happier, healthier and more connected than ever … all without alcohol. Inside FMCG: Clinton, you have launched several social initiatives in the past. Why is it important to you that businesses can help the community?CS: I think a business has a responsibility to assist positively where it can and how it can. Business largely exists because of what it takes from others and from nature, so within this lies a reciprocal responsibility to give back. This is what I know from listening to our old ways and so this is what I strive to do in our business. It is difficult for many people from individualist societies to understand but I think this is improving. We are seeing far more corporate entities engaging in social responsibilities now than I think we have ever witnessed and it is great to be a part of that movement in whatever form we at Sobah can be. Inside FMCG: You also stopped drinking some years ago. Can you share why you decided to make that decision and what that process was like?CS: The decision was easy once I decided it was what I wanted. We spend a lot of our lives with others suggesting what is best for us, and while this may have some influence on how we shape our lives and the decisions we make, it is not really until we activate our own desire for change that we muster the energy to see it through. I decided I did not want my kids to think drinking was the norm, so if that is the impression I want [to] present for them, I had to be prepared to live it. The social side was more difficult to come to terms with than the consumption side. When I stopped drinking it definitely was not the “done thing” where I live on the Gold Coast. I lost a lot of my social connections in the short term, but over time I’ve realised that this simply allowed more space and time in my life for new connections. Reminding yourself of the reasons you want to change and of the positives you are experiencing because of change is really important in successfully changing.Some of Sobah Beverages’ products.Inside FMCG: How would you describe consumers’ awareness of non-alcoholic options and do you see this changing?CS: Awareness has massively increased over the past 12 months. Some of this has been driven by COVID-19 and lockdowns. People had more time to reflect on simple questions [regarding] their regular routines, habits, diets, relationships, work and pretty much everything else in their lives. Questioning drinking is just a natural part of these reflections for many. There are also far more young people who are choosing to live healthier lives and to be prepared to step outside of “traditional” societal norms which is awesome to see. There are still plenty of people out there who are completely blind to non-alcohol options and I think it will be a few years yet until non-alcohol is accepted as a new norm as such … small awkward steps can add up to a long meaningful journey.Inside FMCG: Tell me about how you used native ingredients in your product and what that process was like. CS: Being a former chef and having had some experience in brewing beer, I make connections between the style of beer we want to make and the bush tucker that complements those flavours. The bush tucker is more than an ingredient that gives the beer a unique flavour profile; it lends us the story we tell to connect our consumers to First Nations’ language, culture, country and people. The hardest part about using native foods is that these foods are still considered exotic, they are expensive and there are big companies beginning to monopolise the industry. First Nations people and businesses only make up about 1 per cent of the native foods industry and we try where possible to work with First Nations producers and suppliers. Inside FMCG: What inspired the cans’ designs?Lozen Schultz: Sobah’s visual identity was created in early 2017 in collaboration with Clinton’s brother, Tristan Schultz, who has a design studio, Relative Creative. He designed the cans for the core range and the original packaging. We commissioned the Aboriginal artwork and Tristan used this to embed onto labels that have a motif on the background of the bush tucker used in the drinks. Each layer of the design [and] our logo has a deep meaning that is connected to our food, culture and story. We now work with other designers and artists, and sometimes Clinton himself has produced the artwork for the labels, which tell individual stories that connect with the origins of the native food, country and people. Inside FMCG: How did your collaboration with Lyre’s Spirit Co come about?LS: We met Jeremy Shipley from Lyre’s at an event early in 2020 when he made us some of their NA cocktails and we exchanged some of our beers for Lyres non-alcoholic (NA) spirits. So we have been fans of each other’s drinks for some time. Last year, just for fun at home, I started using our brews and Lyre’s Spirits to make NA cocktails, specifically a take on Dark n’ Spicy, which is rum, ginger beer and lime. This got the marketing team’s creative juices flowing and we reached out to Lyre’s to ask if they would be keen to work with us in creating NA beertails. Jeremy is a mixologist and has experience with making beer cocktails, so he is the real genius behind the recipes. We got Clinton and Jeremy together with a photographer and had some fun making the drinks so we could share these with our social community and customers for FebFast, just for something a little bit fancy! Inside FMCG: What’s happening for the brand this year?CS: This year we are going big. That is the plan. We are planning on building a small brewery and creating a cultural tourist and wellness hub around this. We are constantly increasing our availability into new areas and intend to see significant growth across on-premise, retail and online markets. We are also planning on expanding into overseas markets. We have amazing new branding planned in time for Reconciliation Week in May and a few new brews in the pipeline too!