Meet Natalie and Hannah DiSanto

Today we’d like to introduce you to Natalie and Hannah diSanto.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Natalie and Hannah. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
Turtle Mountain Fermentery was established in February 2014. Rooted in a passion for things holistic and fermented, our founder, Natalie, recognized the benefits of herbs and probiotics in her own body and needed to share the awesome-ness with others. In need of a business-minded partner, Natalie persuaded her sister, Hannah to join the company in 2017.

Turtle Mountain Fermentery began our journey six years ago at the farmer’s markets of Northern Colorado. We remember when people used to ask “but what is kombucha?!” Through the support of our community, we have been lucky enough to grow our distribution range across all of Northern Colorado and to open a tasting room in March of 2018.

We are a woman-owned company operated by two sisters. Slightly quirky ourselves, we take pride in our unique and flavorful brews. From the start we do things slightly differently: all of our kombucha is brewed with Yerba Mate Tea. This South American herb is jam-packed with nutrients and offers a different type of caffeine than what is found in black tea or coffee. This makes our kombucha ideal for the caffeine sensitive and kids.

Alongside kombucha, we also create delicious fermented veggies such as Raw Sauerkrauts and our notorious Colorado Kimchi. These three ferments make up the heart and soul of Turtle Mountain.

It is our customers and community that have helped us grow into the company we are today and we are grateful to each and every one of them. Thank you, Colorado, for enjoying our ferments, drinking our teas, rockin’ our apparel, and supporting us two sisters while we work tirelessly to achieve and exceed our dreams.

Has it been a smooth road?
Building the company and owning a business is a roller coaster of emotions. It is some of the hardest work we have ever done and also some of the most rewarding. Every triumph comes with a new challenge. It definitely keeps us always learning and always striving to be better.

One of our biggest challenges is finding a balance between being co-workers, sisters and friends. It can be easy to lose ourselves in work and not carve enough time out to spend as sisters and friends. We learned to create boundaries when we are just “hanging” out- no business talk. It’s also just as easy to get distracted at work and spend time talking about family or friends. We have work boundaries too to ensure our personal lives don’t creep into the work day.

Another major challenge is how to scale up and remain true to our roots. We have been entirely self-funded over the six years since starting. As we continue to grow, our goal is to always keep Turtle Mountain as a 100% family owned business, which means strict financial planning and tough budgeting to ensure we have enough capital to scale up. It also sometimes means saying “no” to things we really want but that just aren’t feasible for us right now. This is when having the turtle as our logo is super helpful- slow and steady wins the race!

We’d love to hear more about your company.
Turtle Mountain Fermentery is Fort Collins’ Kombucha Taproom and producer of Fermented Foods. We are the healthiest taproom in town! Stop by for a flight, growler fill, or cans of kombucha and enjoy tea, mocktails, immunity shots, and fermented foods while you are here. Our goal is to bring health and wellness to the community of Fort Collins in a fun and funky atmosphere.

What sets us apart from others is that we brew our kombucha exclusively with Yerba Mate tea- this gives our beverages a very light and approachable flavor. We also have an herbalist creating all of our flavors and ferments so each kombucha is blended to strike a balance between flavor and holistic benefit.

We are most proud of our taproom! It is the culmination of years of hard work and we love seeing customers come in and enjoy our space and products! We are also so proud to be a part of the Fort Collins community. There are not many towns that would support a small health foods company and it just shows how conscious our community is of their wellness and that rocks.

Is our city a good place to do what you do?
Colorado is an amazing place for kombucha. Within our state we have a plethora of kombucha companies that range from multi-state distribution and over ten years in the biz to single city distribution and brand-new companies popping up all the time. This competition keeps us all on our toes and always striving to do our best in new and creative ways. We are very thankful to live in a state where people take their health seriously and support their local breweries.

Contact Info:

• Address: 513 N Link Lane Unit C Fort Collins CO 80525
• Website: turtlemountainfermentery.com
• Instagram: @turtlemountainkombucha
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/turtlemountaintea

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