Episode #47: Emily Cunningham // Co-Founder & COO of True Moringa // From Ghana to the US: Bringing the Moringa Tree to Life

Detox & Chill

Hi lovely friends! FINAL REMINDER -- we want you all to come to our gut-health event on April 4th! We will be diving in with Charity Lighten, who is the CEO and Chief Nutritionist at Silver Fern. We’ll start with an amazing Core Power workout, followed by a panel on gut-health and wrapping up with dinner from Dig-Inn. Sign up at the following link!
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/go-with-your-gut-detox-chill-x-silver-fern-brand-tickets-57892653485
Let’s get into today’s episode!
To say that Emily and Kwame are changing the world would be an understatement. Our guest this week, Emily Cunningham, is the Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer of True Moringa, and shares her story of bringing the benefits of “the miracle tree” to the U.S.
In 2011, Emily’s co-founder Kwami had his sights set on becoming a rocket scientist. Emily was in the midst of her third year of studying development economics at Harvard, frustrated by the disconnect between the academic literature and the realities of poverty on the ground.
Coming from different worlds and backgrounds, they traveled to northern Ghana together with MIT’s D-Lab. There, they were united by a desire to take on the challenges smallholder farmers face daily without access to patient capital, quality inputs, technical training, or guaranteed markets.
ENTER THE MORINGA TREE.
During their time in Ghana, Kwami and Emily were introduced to what was known locally as “the miracle tree.” The tree thrives in arid climates. It helps the crops around it grown better. It can be intercropped with subsistence crops mitigating risk to farmers.
The leaves, with more vitamin A than carrots, more protein than eggs, more calcium than milk and more iron than spinach have the potential to end malnutrition and provide a stable food source to farmers.
The oil seeds, rich in anti-oxidants and moisturizing agents produce one of nature’s finest cosmetic oils for hair and skin care.
The solution to poverty, malnutrition, and hunger was growing in their own backyards.
INTRODUCING TRUE MORINGA.
The more they learned about the harmful chemicals in synthetic cosmetics and hair relaxers, the more passionate they became about bringing conscious consumers a natural alternative that actually worked. Putting their engineering and business acumen to work, they went back to Cambridge to devise a proprietary extraction system that could be brought closer to the farmers, adding value and jobs on the ground, and producing the highest quality natural oil nature has to offer.
Today, they serve over 5,000 small farming families, they have planted over 2 million trees, and they have increased the farmer incomes by 10x.
Can you say power duo?!
Check out True Moringa here!!
We hope you enjoy this episode!! Let us know what you think by leaving a review on iTunes, Stitcher, or whever you listen to your favorite podcasts.
WE LOVE YOU!
xoxo,
Meg & Beck

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