Kava Industry Market Forecast

The Kava Industry Is Surging Up - Is Kava Here To Stay?

Businesses around the world have once again been scrambling to secure as much Kava as possible since the World Health Organization ruled in 2015 that kava is SAFE and not toxic to the liver, as had been previously claimed. The recent WHO ruling on Kava has led to the removal of some controls on imports and sales in countries like Germany, and parts of Australia to name a few.

The green light by the World Health Organization has put the spotlight back on Kava root (Piper methysticum) and has set the stage for the biggest Kava demand surge in industry history.  Everyone from pharmaceutical companies to beverage industry giants are once again positioning themselves to incorporate Kava into their product line.  Not to mention the recent Kava bar phenomena that has exploded onto the U.S. market like coffee shops once did in it's early days of industry. 

The Kava market as a whole has been one giant rollercoaster ride over the past 30 years.  Looking back at the 1990's Kava boom, the U.S. demand for Kava from Fiji alone spiked almost 500% from 1997 to 1998.  Pharmaceutical companies being the driving factor for the overall surge in Kava consumption at the time. 

Kava Industry

Kava in the United States

The data from the 1990's Kava market in Fiji is a reminder of how quickly the Kava industry can grow.  Twenty years removed from 1998, we may now be at the dawn of the biggest kava demand surge ever. 

Big data trend forecasters have been publicly buzzing about Kava since the roots safety was affirmed by the World Health Organization in 2015.  Whole Foods already had Kava listed as a top 10 ingredient trend to look out for in 2017. 

In the late 1990's, we saw a lot of functional beverage companies incorporate Kava as an ingredient in their products.  In 2001,  companies like Vitamin Water, Snapple, and Sobe to name a few all had Kava as an ingredient in at least one of their products.  If history repeats itself and major players in the functional beverage space decide to incorporate Kava as an ingredient again, the demand for Kava generated today will be astronomical in comparison to what we saw in the late 1990's.  Consider this, the functional beverage industry was only in it's infancy by 2001.  The U.S. functional beverage market generated $4.7 billion in revenue in 2000 compared to a projected $24.5 billion market for 2018.

So after looking back at a few key points that has happened within the Kava industry over the last 30 years.  We want to know your thoughts on the future of Kava.  Are we on the dawn of the biggest Kava boom in industry history?

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8 comments

  • I live in NZ, we own land in Namosi Fiji. Started planting yaqona in April 2016 with 4000 plan growing well and another 7000 plant this year. I plan to retire in 2020…

    Fiji Yaqona KING
  • will the trend be the same in the next 5 yrs as we have started working in groups so as of today a group of ten men including my husband have planted 10000 kava shoots and this is not including the rest of 5 6 7 yrs that need to be up rooted now

    Meretoka Kamikamica
  • I agreed the multymillion doller crop.no university,just in hard work.plenty land unused

    Jone Aravoro

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