Our story since 2015

How we brought Bacilli to life.

It started as a story of two people who wanted to spend more time together. It ended as a company where things ferment, brew and bubble — and the odd raspberry lemonade fires into a Gucci handbag.

Bacilli are alive because there's a piece of our life in them. We've been writing it this way for over ten years.

Photo · Amálka & David

How it all unfolded

Ten years in ten chapters.

2015

Amálka meets David

Behind it all, look for love

We're twenty, at university and far too in love to spend eight hours a day apart. So we dream up our own company.

Romance against a backdrop of spreadsheets. Plus early mornings, long nights and a business that gradually moves into our lives.

2016

Nemléko is born

The business didn't break the relationship — but it broke mum's kitchen

The company Nemléko is born. In mum's kitchen we start making plant milks — our first Nemléka. Along the way we unglued the kitchen counter and chilled the Nemléka in the bathtub.

Every great culture needs somewhere to grow. Here, mum's kitchen took the hit.

2017

Nejogurty, nemásla, nesýry — and Černošice

From the kitchen to a warehouse

Nejogurty, nemásla and nesýry join the nemléka. To mum's relief we move to Černošice, into a former 600 m² ice-cream factory. The owners hand over the keys despite their doubts.

We move in right away. We can't afford a flat — and still work 14 hours a day, 7 days a week.

2020

Year of Bacilli

One book, one memory of ginger ale.

The Bacilli brand is born, and its first product — kimchi. Our friend Marek gives us The Art of Fermentation by Sandor Katz. It stirs David's memory of his beloved ginger ale.

The recipe he finds gives rise to Fizzy Ginger, and soon Ginger Shot and kombucha are born.

2021

The first Bacilli raspberry lemonade

The hero product that gives us juice!

We make the first Bacilli raspberry lemonade. Our most successful product so far.

One of the few made from real raspberries. A shocking concept — that worked!

2022

Success bubbles to the surface!

A living product. A living operation. Occasionally a living destroyer of luxury.

Production grows. The Bacilli ferment, bubble and spray. We have plenty of work, worries and joys.

We pay for repainting an interior, cleaning a car's interior, and one customer sends her lawyer husband after us because raspberry lemonade leaked into her Gucci handbag.

2023

Eduard is born

Kids change life and business.

With our son's birth, our view of business changed too.

We started caring more about meaning, sustainability and quality. And whether we'd give our own products to our own kids. David, on paternity leave, learns to bake his own bread.

2024

We open the Mokropec bakery

If it bubbles, it has to ferment too.

Sourdough is a culture too. It just moves into bread instead of a bottle. In Černošice we open the Mokropec bakery and push our business another step further.

2025

1.5 million Bacilli products

Billions of microcultures, millions of bottles sold.

We've sold 1.5 million Bacilli products. We added Bacilli Soda cans, decided to buy a new line and move to a bigger hall.

2026

We've become factory folk

From the bathtub to the production line.

Today we produce just past Beroun. We have more space, a new line, and for the first time ever a truck can drive in.

Our employee Aleš celebrated 10 years with the company. When someone sticks with us for a decade, it's not just a working relationship. It's a living company culture!

What's next?

We still make drinks the way we want to drink them ourselves.

From the first batch in mum's kitchen to our own production line — almost everything about our business has changed. Just one thing stayed the same: we still believe in it.

We believe quality isn't a detail but the foundation. That honesty is worth it, even when it's slower, pricier and harder. And that a good drink shouldn't be just another bottle on the shelf, but a piece of work by people who truly care.

At Bacilli, it's alive — because we live it too!

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