How Zoey Shamai built one of Canada’s most recognizable kombucha brands
It was in New Mexico, in 2005, when yoga teacher Zoey Shamai first discovered kombucha. At the time, she was living in an ashram—a community where yoga, meditation and mindful living are practiced. “Everyone there was making kombucha,” Shamai explains. “At first, I hated the smell and I didn’t love the taste, but I had the most incredible digestion boost.”
Kombucha—a slightly fizzy, fermented tea—originated in China in 221 BC and gradually made its way to Russia and Europe, eventually reaching hippie communities in the United States in the 1960s. An essential ingredient of kombucha is a live SCOBY (symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast), which forms from the previous brew. The SCOBY ferments a vat of sweetened black tea into gut-friendly bacteria, enzymes and acids over one to two months.
In 2006, Shamai returned home to Toronto and began brewing kombucha, refining her recipe to be less acidic and more palatable. At the time, she was teaching yoga and waitressing at a raw foods restaurant. After developing her recipe, Shamai began producing kombucha in her bachelor apartment. She sold bottles under the name The Fairy’s Tonic to her yoga students and at the restaurant where she worked. “People started to ask for more and more bottles,” she says.
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To take her business to the next level, Shamai reached out to two health food grocers in Toronto: Noah’s Natural Foods and The Big Carrot, who became her first retail partners in 2007. “I would deliver all of my cases on my bike,” Shamai recalls.
The following year, her first distributor came calling: the Ontario Natural Food Co-op, which ramped up her distribution to 100 stores. A year later, she left her waitressing and yoga teaching gigs to focus on making kombucha full time. Then, in 2010, she moved into her first commercial facility and landed her first major retailer—Whole Foods Market in British Columbia. Soon after, Shamai rebranded her company from The Fairy’s Tonic to Tonica.
Her next big break was appearing on Dragons’ Den, which aired in 2012. “It was a huge success,” Shamai says. “I got a ton of inquiries after.” The show led to partnerships with new grocers, including Metro and Farm Boy. By 2013, Shamai moved into a 4,000-sq.-ft. production facility in Toronto’s Stockyards district, using nearly all her savings—about $10,000—to install new epoxy flooring to make the facility food-grade.
But when she began production in the new facility, disaster struck, threatening to derail everything she had built. “The space had been sold to me as being ready for food production, but it turned out there was lead in the pipes,” Shamai explains. “The first week we moved in after renovation, all my brews and SCOBYs were destroyed.”
It was a devastating moment for Shamai. “It destroyed everything I had been building up for the last six years,” she says. Shamai spent the next seven months scaling her production back up by slowly growing new SCOBYs and finding a new facility.
“That was a very difficult time,” explains Shamai. “I was determined to do everything I could to save my business.”
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Shamai bounced back stronger. In the years that followed, she hit several milestones. Shoppers Drug Mart began stocking Tonica in 800 stores, followed by Loblaws and Sobeys. Then, private-label requisitions started coming in. In 2017, Tonica moved to a 10,000-sq.-ft. facility in Woodbridge, Ont. where it still operates today. The introduction of new formats came in 2020—a one-litre bottle and 20-litre kegs, followed by low-sugar cans a few years later. In 2025, Tonica launched in Save-On-Foods in Western Canada, followed by No Frills in Ontario and Maxi in Quebec this year, bringing its total count to 2,500 stores.
As Shamai celebrates 20 years in business, she says the introduction of new flavours and formats is how she keeps the brand fresh. “We’re constantly innovating,” she says. “From launching the litres to low-sugar cans to kegs to changing up our flavours, all of that has helped us stay relevant.” To commemorate the company’s anniversary, Tonica launched a DIY kit for at-home brewing. And a new product line is coming soon, though the entrepreneur says she’s not ready to share details just yet, only that it will be her first foray outside of kombucha.
For Shamai, Tonica isn’t just about owning a business—it’s a way to share the benefits of kombucha. “The reason I started this was to help people with their digestion,” she says. “We get emails from people thanking us because we’ve helped them with their IBS, or their digestion or bloating. It just feels so great.”
This article was first published in Canadian Grocer’s June/July 2026 issue.
