GT Dave

George Thomas Dave is an American businessman and founder and CEO of the kombucha company GT's Living Foods. In the late 1990s, he was the first to put kombucha on store shelves, and his company currently owns 40% of the U.S. kombucha market.

In 1992, a family friend gifted them a SCOBY which she said had been given to her by a Buddhist nun. Dave's parents began homebrewing kombucha when Dave was a freshman at Beverly Hills High School. His first sale of kombucha (which he marketed as GT's Kombucha) was to Erewhon Natural Foods in 1995, when he sold two cases (24 bottles), nearly all of which were sold in the first day.

Rebranded as GT's Living Foods, the company now produces over one million bottles per year in its 100,000-square-foot campus in Vernon. Dave has declined multiple acquisition offers and remains sole owner of GT's Living Foods, which is worth over $900 million and represents 40% of the U.S. kombucha market.

Legal issues In 2017, Dave's company and Whole Foods Market reached a $8.25 million settlement and were ordered to change its kombucha labeling to remove false health claims. The suit also alleged that the kombucha's packaging was dangerous when the gas-producing contents developed pressure.

In 2023, a Los Angeles County Superior Court decision found that Dave's Vernon, California factory subjected its workers to "deplorable and abusive and disturbing working conditions", requiring workers to take 12- to 14-hour shifts, denying them breaks and overtime pay. Judge William Highberger characterized Dave, who testified in his own defense, as having "demonstrated a total absence of credibility." married Allan Fanucchi in Hawaii in 2019. In 2023, Dave purchased a $14-million hilltop estate in Beverly Hills to complement other 2 nearby homes.

He has said that he drinks eight to twelve bottles (1 to 1.5 gallons or 3.8–5.7 liters) of his kombucha per day and taste-tests each batch.

In 1996, Dave’s older brother Justin died due to bone cancer. After Justin's death, Dave's parents divorced. He remains close with his mother Laraine, whose cancer recovery is featured in the marketing of GT's Living Foods. His eldest brother, Adam, graduated from Louisiana State University's medical school in 2008.