Matt Thomas is the Founder and CEO of The Townshend Group, which consists of three operating businesses: Brew Dr. Kombucha, Townshend’s Company, and Townshend’s Distillery. During his senior year at the University of Oregon, Matt was tasked with creating a plan for a new business targeting an underserved audience.

Inspired by a love of tea, Matt found that there was a noticeable gap in the market for quality in the ongoing coffeehouse boom and developed a business model that would fill that void and make premium tea more accessible. In 2003, he opened his first in Portland, Oregon and today Townshend’s Tea Company has nine across Oregon, Utah, and Montana.

In 2008 Matt began making the beverage known as kombucha as a menu extension at his then two teahouses. Customer response was overwhelming and Brew Dr. Kombucha was born. It quickly became the rocket ship of the operation, as Matt leaned into growing Brew Dr. even faster than Townshend’s. The kombucha company now produces millions of gallons of kombucha each year from its own 50,000 sq ft brewery, and distributes to all fifty US states and Canada.

As part of producing Brew Dr. Kombucha, Matt installed an innovative low- temperature distillation technology to remove the small content created during kombucha . Seeing this as another way to get creative with tea, Matt founded the world’s first and only tea distillery. Started as an entrepreneurial effort to make use of this alcohol byproduct, Townshend’s Distillery has become an award-winning craft spirits business. Its line of products is currently distributed on the west coast.

After launching his first teahouse with only $45,000 raised from friends and family, Matt now employs over 300 people across these three distinct, tea- focused companies. TheTownshend’s Group places a strong emphasis on caring for employees, community, and planet. Brew Dr. Kombucha received B Corp certification in September 2018, is a member of 1% For The Planet, and supports numerous non-profit organizations.