COGS and Pricing strategies for Wellness Brands

Sandra Velasquez is the founder of Nopalera, a Mexican Botanical Bath & Body line based in New York City that is currently sold in Nordstrom, Free People, Credo Beauty, and over 300 independent retailers nationwide. Prior to launching Nopalera, Velasquez worked as a sales & distribution manager for several CPG brands across multiple categories. In addition to running her company, she works as a mentor to emerging CPG brands and teaches online classes about sales strategy.

Success Story Interview: Golde

Trinity Mouzon Wofford is the Co-founder and CEO at Golde, a Brooklyn-born health and beauty brand. With her partner, Issey Kobori, she founded Golde in 2017 with the mission of bringing accessibility to the wellness industry via approachable products powered by superfoods. Since launching the brand at age 23, Trinity has been named one of Forbes 30 under 30 and most recently landed Golde on the shelves of Target stores across the country.

Plant Stewardship in Your Herbal Supply Chain

Susan Leopold, PhD, is an ethnobotanist and passionate defender of biodiversity. Over the past 20 years, Susan has worked extensively with indigenous peoples in Peru and Costa Rica. She is the Executive Director of United Plant Savers and Director of the Sacred Seeds Project. Prior to working at United Plant Savers, she worked as a librarian at the Oak Spring Garden Library, specializing in digitizing rare herbals and botanical travel manuscripts. She currently serves on the Board of Directors for Botanical Dimensions and the Center for Sustainable Economy.

She is an advisory board member of American Botanical Council. She is a proud member of the Patawomeck Indian Tribe of Virginia and the author of the children's book Isabella's Peppermint Flower. She lives on and manages a productive farm, the Indian Pipe Botanical Sanctuary with her three children in Virginia. She is an avid recreational tree climber, in love with the canopy just as much as the herbs of the forest floor.

Success Story Interview: Peak & Valley

Nadine is the founder and CEO of Peak and Valley, a mindful company that creates mushroom and herbal supplements for holistic wellness. Previously a neuroscience researcher, she now travels worldwide to mindfully source each ingredient from family owned organic and regenerative farms in India, Peru, South Africa, and more.

Success Story Interview: Meow Meow Tweet

Jeff Kurosaki (they/them) and Tara Pelletier (they/she) are co-founders of California-based personal care company, Meow Meow Tweet. Their mission is to create ethical and natural personal care products that are not stressful to the earth, do not harm animals, are manufactured and packaged in a positive work environment, and are presented to the consumer at an accessible price point. Drawing on Tara’s background as a chef and herbalist, all goods are developed as if they were modern culinary dishes. All of the packaging features whimsical illustrations by Jeff.

Introduction to Lab Tests

Amanda Vickers Souther (she/they) is a conservation biologist, medicinal plant chemist, and self-trained formulator of natural products. For ten years, she ran a non-profit laboratory serving the global natural products industry and helping herbal product companies meet US FDA testing and regulatory requirements. She currently co-owns a natural bodycare company Mountains to Sea, consults with herbal companies at Pop Horticulture, and tends an Appalachian urban homestead with her husband and daughter near Asheville, NC.

Scaling up Sourcing

Ben is the Co-Founder & Chief Herbalist at Rasa, an adaptogenic coffee alternative company. He leads formulation, sourcing, quality, and herbal education. Before Rasa, Ben was a senior herb buyer for the tea company Celestial Seasonings, where he purchased 10 million lbs of herbs a year from all over the world. He's an alumnus of the Colorado School of Clinical Herbalism and Maryland University of Integrative Health.

Mission-driven Marketing

Daniella Allam is a strategy consultant that helps mission-driven food & beverage companies set sustainable strategies, launch innovation, and drive growth by unlocking business and consumer insights. An experienced CPG marketer & innovator, Daniella has led double-digit velocity turnarounds, multimillion-dollar product launches, and revenue growth at Fortune 500, alcohol beverage, natural products, and plant-based companies.

As the Founder and Principal of PLANTAS, Daniella leverages close to a decade of experience in the consumer goods industry advising plant-based startups and small to medium natural product brands on marketing, innovation, consumer insights, and business strategy.

How to Get the Most from Branding & Packaging Design

Kristine Arth is the founder and principal designer of Lobster Phone, the San Francisco based design studio specializing in branding, packaging and creative direction. She is known for building brands that carefully balance timelessness with distinct visual expression. Arth has designed identities for global brands such as PayPal, Nivea, Western Digital, and SodaStream, in addition to start-ups such as Love Wellness, Cresco, Loliware, Tovala, and The House of LR&C. 

Her work has earned awards from Red Dot, IDA, iF Design, IDSA, SPARK!, GDUSA, IDEA and The Dieline. Kristine has juried The One Show, SOTA, IDSA and ADAA; was a keynote speaker at First Round, Brand New, and AIGA. She’s been a featured designer and host for Adobe on Behance. TechCrunch recommended Lobster Phone as one of the best design studios for start-ups.

In Living Color Space Facilitator

Amanda is a community herbalist, a gardener, the mother of three amazing children, and the creator of Rootwork Herbals and the many initiatives that are a part of that container. She tends plants and people growing gardens, handcrafting remedies, offering consultations and teaching.

Her approach to herbalism is based in the ways of her ancestors, building intimate relationships with the plants that grow nearby in order to bring herbal medicine and home healthcare to the people. In doing this, she sees herbalism as a means to support life and thus resist against oppressive systems, which undermine health. Above all, amanda is a lover of plants and a lover of people and is passionate about bringing them together in a down to earth, joyful and accessible way that promotes personal and planetary healing.

In Living Color Space Facilitator

Mandana (ماندانا) is an Iranian-American community herbalist, storyteller, land tender, and a joyous member of the mycelial network of liberatory-movement stewards and lovers. She is a co-founder and educator at Wild Gather, School of Herbal Studies, where she has the deep pleasure of sharing her love and experiences with plant medicine and community care.

Her exploration of plant medicine began in her childhood kitchen, where she first encountered the sound of the mortar and pestle finding rhythm, the smell of rue and angelica smoke curling up from the sofreh and the stories of her ancestors carried forward by her mother. She works to honor her cultural legacy by weaving her traditions and rituals into all facets of her work.

Mandana finds her north star in supporting her community’s diverse relationships to the land, through empowering personal healing, reconnection, reclaiming, and remembering of cultural and ancestral knowledge, instructions, and technologies. Through her shared wisdom and initiatives in the Mahicantuck (Hudson) Valley, she works to offer her community access to equitable care, fertile land, plant medicine, and herbal education.

Building a Unique and Ownable Brand Voice

Summer Singletary (she/her) is an herbalist, cookbook author, and marketer. She believes that access to plant-based health care is a human right and her work centers around preserving plant medicines and practices while making things practical and playful.

She’s studied herbalism at The Florida School of Holistic Living, The California School of Herbal Studies, and Ayurveda at the dhyana Center.

Summer founded Warmly, Agency to support emerging and leading CPG brands in the natural products industry that aim to build equitable businesses, challenge the status quo, and create products with integrity. The agency provides marketing support in product copywriting, content development, and overall strategy.

Herbal Product Labeling

Zoë Gardner, PhD (she/her) is a self-proclaimed herb nerd with over 20 years of experience working with medicinal plants. A specialist in the quality and safety of medicinal plants, she is the research editor of the 2nd edition of AHPA’s Botanical Safety Handbook. Zoë was head of R&D at Traditional Medicinals where she worked closely with Quality, Purchasing, Marketing, and Regulatory departments. She now splits her time between HerbNerd Research, Emblossom, and Flora Pottery.

Hiring and Using a Virtual Assistant 101

Yoga Instructor & Community Manager

As a self-identified ‘hype-girl’, Jacqueline (she/her) works with companies and entrepreneurs to help them feel their best. She helps driven CEOs and solopreneurs with day-to-day tasks and project management, so they can best optimize their valuable time. She is a yogi and wellness advocate and she brings authenticity and integrity into any job or workplace. Her passion for helping others become the best versions of themselves does not stop at the mat, it's infused into every project she takes on, including supporting the Emblossom Conference community.

Morning Reset: Pranayama & Meditation

Marisol (she/her) is a Y200 and Masters of Wisdom & Meditation certified yoga teacher. Her praxis is deeply grounded in the cultural and philosophical roots of yoga, while also implementing an intersectional lens to better serve marginalized communities. The thrust of her offerings is to reframe yoga as a way of living and being rather than a physical activity one "does" in discrete amounts. To this end, her classes honor all aspects of yoga from asana and meditation to ethics and philosophy.