S8 Ep11: Making Fruits and Veggies a Delicious Habit with Colorful Concoctions on the Go with Amber Benson
“You're not going to heal unless you're creating that environment in your body. We should understand that fruits and vegetables help you every single day.” —Amber Benson
While we're often told the importance of "eating the rainbow" each day, many struggle to fit those colorful servings of produce into their busy routines. Without sufficient intake of these nutrient-dense whole foods, we miss out on essential vitamins, minerals, fiber, and plant compounds shown to support longevity and decrease the probability of chronic illnesses. Hence, this widespread deficiency has become a major public health issue that demands innovative solutions.
This week, Justine is joined by Amber Benson, the co-founder of Ruvi, a company that uses freeze-dried technology to preserve the nutrients in fruits and vegetables while making them easy to enjoy anytime in a convenient powder form.
Listen in as Amber discusses how their clean label approach and use of freeze-dried technology help more people increase their fruit and vegetable consumption. Justine and Amber also explore the importance of balancing fruit, vegetable, and fiber intake for wellness, strategies for educating consumers, making healthy eating easier through convenient fruit and veggie delivery, and more!
Connect with Amber:
Amber has a passion for healthy eating and a disdain for waste. The co-founder of Ruvi, she is on a mission to crush nutritional deficiency with the planet’s purest source of nutrition: fruits and veggies. Amber worked in food and supplements for 20 years and loves the challenge of starting a new business. She received an MBA from Brigham Young University. She’s married with three children and feels accomplished when she gets a healthy meal at her family’s dinner table at night. Her favorite fruit is papaya with a squeeze of lime.
Episode Highlights:
01:16 Leveraging Freeze-Dried Technology
04:25 The Benefits of Delivery Service
09:02 How Fruits and Vegetables Impact Health and Wellness
13:25 Product Development foe Healthy Eating
17:57 The Power of Easy and Readable Labels
22:01 Go Ruvi, Get Ruvi
Resources:
Get your Ruvi Coupon
Use Code: Essential20
Tweets:
Did you know eating more fruits & veggies could improve your sleep, digestion, and immune system within days? Listen to this episode to get insights on the many health benefits of increasing your "rainbow" intake with @jreichman and Ruvi Co-Founder, Amber Benson.
#podcast #entrepreneurship #socialgood #inspiration #impactmatters #NextGenChef #EssentialIngredients #Season8 #Ruvi #healthyeating #nutrition #fruitsandveggies #womeninbusiness #guthealth #immunesupport #cleanlabel #plantpowered
Inspirational Quotes:
02:14 “[Freeze-drying] is a great way to utilize food instead of just throwing it away, which is such a problem.” —Amber Benson
04:10 “People are noticing improvements in everyday health when they're consuming more fruits and veggies.” —Amber Benson
09:59 “A good team works together. There are no boundaries, there's no job too big or too small. When you don't have the luxury of having a huge staff to rely on, the only people you can rely on are those key individuals.” —Justine Reichman
10:33 “In starting a business, we learn things that we never expect to learn. Our skills are tested in ways that were never tested before so we get the opportunity to have success in ways that we've never, ever imagined.” —Justine Reichman
11:52 “Half of what you eat should be fruits and vegetables. There's a lot of education that we can do as a brand to help people understand the value of fruits and vegetables.” —Amber Benson
12:48 “You're not going to heal unless you're creating that environment in your body. We should understand that fruits and vegetables help you every single day.” —Amber Benson
20:41 “All these different kinds of sugars are just masking [the taste of fruits and vegetables].” —Justine Reichman
24:43 “You don't have to go far to find information about fruits and vegetables and what they do for your body. We just need to get more.” —Amber Benson
Transcriptions:
Justine Reichman: Good morning, and welcome to Essential Ingredients. I'm your host, Justine Reichman. With me today is Amber Benson. She is the Co-Founder of Ruvi.
Welcome, Amber.
Amber Benson: Hi, everybody.
Justine Reichman: Amber, if you would, could you introduce yourself, your position and what you do?
Amber Benson: Yes. Amber Benson. I am the Co-Founder of Ruvi. We do fruit and veggie smoothie drinks. We're trying to help more people get fruits and vegetables because it's so hard. So that's my passion. That's what I do.
Justine Reichman: But why fruits and veggies? What inspired you to do these fruits and veggies?
Amber Benson: So back in the day, I was working with my current business partner developing products for him. He owns one of the largest freeze dried companies, like a manufacturing company, in the world. I was looking into fruits and vegetables, all of the research and the huge problem that not enough people are getting. 9 out of 10 people don't get enough fruits and vegetables. And then reading about everything that fruits and vegetables do, we started clashing our heads together and thinking, what can we do to help people get more fruits and vegetables?
Justine Reichman: Wow. When you were working with him previously, what have you been working on?
Amber Benson: So yeah, we were developing different products. We were working on a meal kit solution to help people make easier meals in the home. And along with that, came fruits and vegetables. Freeze drying is so remarkable, and the way that it retains nutrients. And so a lot of the research I was doing was in this freeze drying space, and how freeze drying really retains better nutrients than grocery store produce. And we have this technology at our fingertips. We also notice that after freeze drying anything like spinach or strawberries, there's a little layer of powder leftover in the freeze dryer, because it really just dries things out almost entirely. So we didn't want to just throw this powder away. We thought, what can we do with this powder? How can we use the nutritional gold that's in this freeze dryer to help people get easier fruits and veggies?
Justine Reichman: So would you say that you're upcycling now?
“[Freeze-drying] is a great way to utilize food instead of just throwing it away, which is such a problem.” —Amber Benson
Amber Benson: Yes. Not all of our ingredients are upcycled, but we're getting to that place. This is a great way to utilize food instead of just throwing it away, which is such a problem. But utilizing freeze dried as well in an upcycled way.
Justine Reichman: So when you first decided to go into this, I'm curious, did upcycling or freeze dried, did one of them take the lead in your initiative? Were you more passionate about one versus the other? What was your overarching goal?
Amber Benson: Yes, fruits and vegetables primarily. But it was a perfect combination. So naturally, I'm really drawn to fruits and vegetables, and the power there. Jason as well. I think he calls himself a freak, and he eats mostly plants, loves fruits and vegetables. And really, the research behind fruits and vegetables is what really drove the decisions that we were making. But here we are in the middle of this amazing freeze dried technology and becoming experts in that space. Jason, especially. We have some things that are at our fingertips. Just freeze dried technology we're really good at, how do we use that to solve the problem of fruits and vegetables?
Justine Reichman: Now that you've created this product, what are you hopeful for?
Amber Benson: If we can improve that statistic of only 1 in 10 people getting enough fruits and vegetables, if we can get it to two, and then to three, to four, the people that use Ruvi, that drink Ruvi every day, gosh, they're not part of that statistic anymore. They're the ones that are getting enough fruits and vegetables, and they're seeing the benefit in their life. They're feeling the benefits of fruits and vegetables. That's what we're really in it for. It was remarkable. When we first started to market testing this, we thought, well, it's fruits and vegetables. People aren't going to notice any difference right away. That's for the long term things like heart disease, diabetes and cancer. Those things might improve. But right away, it's fruits and veggies, it's not going to do anything. But we learned quickly the first market tests, we did that within 8 to 10 days. People are noticing improvements in everyday health when they're consuming more fruits and veggies.
“People are noticing improvements in everyday health when they're consuming more fruits and veggies.” —Amber Benson
Justine Reichman: That's amazing. Are there any stories you can share from folks that have decided to include Ruvi in their diet and the impact it's had for them?
Amber Benson: There's so many stories. So my sister in law was one of the testers early on. She's a mountain runner. She loves running in the mountains. She said, oh, my gosh, I don't have to set an alarm anymore because I'm sleeping so much better. Wow, who knew fruits and veggies could do that. We have remarkable weight loss stories because Ruvi not only helps with those efforts. The fruits and veggies do, but it changes your mindset into healthy eating. If I'm going to start my day off like this, why wouldn't I want to just stay on that good track of healthy eating? So when that gal had tried, she told me every weight loss strategy on the planet, and genetically, she just struggled with that. And for the first time in her life, she was really able to lose weight that she wanted to, and have that vibrancy and energy in her life that she had been seeking for so long. We had one lady come to us saying that her migraines were less than when she used to have them. Fruits and vegetables help with your brain function and reduce some of that. So digestion is, of course, almost a given for people who start to consume fruits and veggies. With Ruvi, their digestion starts to improve.
Justine Reichman: So many positive impacts. Is there something that you notice, on a personal level for yourself?
Amber Benson: For me, who knows that my kids are starting to get older, but I get a cold, all of that. I was constantly cycling through these colds, and my immune system just seems to be so much better. In fact, my son who I need to be better at giving Ruvi to everyday. He's 13. He was flat on his back last week just sick. I don't know, he probably had the flu, but he missed school. He had a soccer tournament this weekend so I'm starting to pump all of this goodness into his body. But my husband and I who drink Ruvi regularly were really consistent at getting all of our servings of fruits and veggies, neither of us got it. And we were around it. I felt like okay, this is coming on. And then the next day, I'd wake up and I'm like, it didn't hit me. So immune system for me, for sure.
Justine Reichman: That's great, because it helps so many people with things that they struggle with on an everyday basis. Sleep, digestion. These are all complaints that we hear over and over and over again. It's such a healthy solution, easy to incorporate. You started this with somebody that you used to work with or for, I'm not sure.And now, you guys are partners. So tell me about that. You guys came together as partners, what was the process like for that?
Amber Benson: Jason co-owned the company. I used to work for him. He was my boss, and we worked very closely with product development, finding market solutions and developing those products. And so together, we created Ruvi, and started market testing. And not only did we know, okay, we've got this amazing product. But then, what do we do with it? Do we just launch it in one of his other brands, that is, these off spins of his company? Or do we create our own company? At first, we launched it underneath another brand knowing that we wanted to get really quick market penetration, really quick story generation, it was this really captive audience. So we launched Ruvi that way, and started to get that rolling in. And then COVID hit. It was interesting because we knew that the customer base would likely like Ruvi, but they were a little bit more into food storage, and utilizing freeze dried that way when Ruvi really is just an everyday every person product. So as soon as COVID hits, everybody's mindset shifts. And we knew that we needed to pull Ruvi away pretty quickly. So we worked to pull away. The technology systems started to separate the supply chain and manufacturing from that parent company, and were able to pull away fully at the beginning of 2022. And then come in and be his partner. So it was a good fit because I had been running the Ruvi brand from the beginning.
Justine Reichman: So what was it like going from being an employee to somebody to be their partner?
Amber Benson: It was a natural fit. Jason's the perfect partner because he's innovative, he's caring, he's always looking out for the team and reads people well, knows where somebody can come in and adds value. I think he saw that with me, but then also saw it with everybody that we've hired is finding the people who will help bring value to the company. Sometimes, I still call him boss. But no, it works really well. I think it's great to have somebody to feed your ideas off of, and to check or question the ideas that you have. So that's been really good.
Justine Reichman: It's really a testament to both, he and you, that you can go from one dynamic to another so seamlessly.
Amber Benson: Yeah, it worked really well. We're in this small startup phase so it's not like we have these big roles that we separate, and everyone's kind of all hands on deck in our startup space. We all do. So many different things. I walked in this morning and Jason was sitting in the warehouse at the shipping station. I said, well, what are you doing today? Saw this big shipping problem, went in and kind of assaulted himself. Everybody's helping in every capacity that we can is the right way to say it.
Justine Reichman: I think that that's true to start out. A good team works together. We've tried to play to our strengths. But equally, there are no boundaries. There's no job too big or too small that you don't take on. You just don't have the luxury of having a huge staff to rely on. So the only people you can rely on are those key individuals. You're a small, but mighty team. That's what it is.
Amber Benson: I love that phase. It's just so great. I think when we're huge, it is going to be intimidating. I just love having everybody close, and everybody knowing what everybody's working on. So it's a good phase to be in.
“A good team works together. There are no boundaries, there's no job too big or too small. When you don't have the luxury of having a huge staff to rely on, the only people you can rely on are those key individuals.” —Justine Reichman
Justine Reichman: It's a great phase. I think we learn things that we never expect to learn, and figure things out. Our skills are tested in ways that we're never tested before, and so we get the ability to have such an opportunity to have success in ways that we've never ever imagined.
Amber Benson: I agree. I think we're at a position in development, technology and growth in our world where we can go and start a business and have so many resources literally at our fingertips to help do that. I found in our food community, there's a lot of people willing to help us in the areas that we don't know yet how to do. And so that's been really helpful as well.
Justine Reichman: When you look at this company you've been around for a short time, and you look forward to the next three to five years, what does that look like to you?
“Half of what you eat should be fruits and vegetables. There's a lot of education that we can do as a brand to help people understand the value of fruits and vegetables.” —Amber Benson
Amber Benson: Definitely continuing to pursue being experts in fruits and vegetables. Helping to not only provide this product, but to help educate people in the power of fruits and vegetables. And the need, I think we've learned about it in health class, but I don't think that we really understand as a society how crucial this part of what we eat is. It should be half of what we eat. And people, we've had that plate for several years that shows half of what you eat should be fruits and vegetables. But I read a statistic that half of the people in the US don't even know about that. So there's just a lot of education that we can do as a brand to help people understand the value of fruits and vegetables. Educating and then pushing further into the supply chain, creating really great relationships with our farmers, and being a little more integrated that way is one of our desires and goals.
Justine Reichman: If there were a couple things, two or three things that you wish that your customer knew that maybe they don't know, or are overlooked, or a given to so many but not to others, what would those things be?
Amber Benson: Fruits and vegetables can make you feel better today and tomorrow. I was talking with a woman just today, and she's recovering from surgery, and she's not healing well. And I said, okay. First of all, you need to eat a lot of protein. And secondly, you need to eat all of your servings of fruits and vegetables. You're not going to heal unless you're creating that environment in your body. So understanding that fruits and vegetables help you every single day, that's one thing I want my customers to know. And it can be easy. I know fruits and veggies can be hard. Eating an apple is not that hard, but eating a variety of fruits and veggies can be tricky. And cooking is hard in our fast paced world. But you know what? With Ruvi, literally 30 seconds, you can have half your daily servings of fruits and veggies. So it doesn't need to be difficult. And yeah, there's hope. I think a lot of people are just not feeling good in their life, and there's hope for sure.
Justine Reichman: I think that that's amazing. And the one thing I am for is many things I'm curious about, but let's start here. Oftentimes, when you eat strawberries and blueberries, you could sit down and eat a basket. How easy is it to eat a basket, but there's a lot of sugar in that too. Or sometimes, you eat too many, and it gives you a stomach ache. I can say that myself because I can sit there and eat blueberries and cherries, but I'm eating the whole batch because that's what I bought, and I'm still hungry. So I'm wondering, what are the proportions that you use for Ruvi to create a complete drink or juice so that it balances between too much and just enough?
Amber Benson: It's surprising depending on the demographic that you're in. Some demographics eat more vegetables and fruit. Ruvi is nearly half vegetable, which is surprising when you drink it. The green one, you do taste more veggie. This one is 60% veggie, but the others are almost half veggie. And so that is important in our formulation to provide because vegetables don't have the calories that fruit do. But I would say that there's probably, I think there's this kind of sugar scare out there. Don't eat too much sugar. Don't eat too much fruit. Well, you know what? I don't think the calories that we're consuming are really coming from fruit. There's very few people who are eating too much fruit and causing calorie problems. It's the other foods that we're eating in our diet. So I usually tell people, don't get scared of fruit. You need fruit. Obviously, if you're getting a bellyache because you've eaten too many. Just try to get half of what you eat fruits and veggies in whatever way you can do it. I never want to shy somebody away from that. Vegetables are always going to be just a little bit better. They're a little more nutrient dense and less sugar. But gosh, there's nothing wrong with sitting down and eating a full apple.
Justine Reichman: I agree. So when you look at your future, and you look at the existing products that you have, what's next up for you? Are there any expansion plans for the existing product line? Are there other things you're considering or are looking to create?
Amber Benson: We have new Ruvi drink blends in the works right now. So we have new flavors coming out that address different things by nature. Fruits and vegetables do different things for your body. That's why they say, eat the rainbow. So it's important to get different colors. So we do have some more colors in the works. But we've learned through what our consumers do on a daily basis and how they use Ruvi that a lot of people like Ruvi with protein. So that's a natural next step for us to create a protein powder that can mix well with Ruvi. And something that they can also do easily on the go. It's great to be able to just pop down to our little kitchenette and create a lunch easily with Ruvi and some protein. We have little blenders down there as well. So proteins are a natural next fit, and then maybe some education components. Being able to provide some nutritional health to people, either one on one, or in whatever way we come up with. So there's a lot of room for expansion that way.
Justine Reichman: I think education is the key. I'm always curious to hear people's plans for how they want to communicate this information. So what have you found the most successful ways of educating your consumers?
Amber Benson: These kinds of things are great. Anytime that we can get out in front of new user bases through podcasting, I feel like podcast listeners are just hungry for information. So podcasting is an excellent way to educate people. We're even looking into that something in our future as well to be able to invite other experts on and share their knowledge to our user base. But email, surprisingly, is really efficient and effective as a social media for those little short nuggets of information. An email drives people into our blog, which houses a lot of information that way.
Justine Reichman: I think that those are all really great things. We're so happy to be able to have a platform so that you can share this information, whether it's with our listeners or viewers, whether they're building businesses and they can be inspired, or they want to make a better choice for their family. I think it's all in the conversation that we have. I'm so grateful to be able to have this conversation with you. One question that I'm curious about is, are there so many different powders out there? I'm wondering how you stand out from all the others.
Amber Benson: When we were developing Ruvi, we thought, well, first of all, we're gonna have to add sweeteners to this. It's fruits and veggies, you have to have something to sweeten it. We're probably gonna have to add some flow agents to help it stay smooth, and maybe some protein. What are all these things we're gonna have to add to it to make it better? Well, when we were testing it with consumers, and even the concept, they said, no, We just need fruits and vegetables. We don't want all of the other stuff in this product. Please, just give us more fruits and veggies. And so really, when you go and look at a lot of the greens powders on the market, this kind of NLB supplement that tries to include all of the things that you might need. Whereas, it's a food label. It's really just a different way to get your fruits and vegetables. And then the freeze drying is so unique. Usually when you dry something into a powder, you have to use a lot of heat. You're maybe juicing it first so you're stripping all of the fiber out. Well, we just take pieces of apple or slices of cucumber, and we dry it really gently just to remove the water, and then we crush it into a powder. So it's fruits and vegetables with all of the fiber. So it's definitely different that way if we tell people that it's not a supplement that fills in the gaps. It is the gaps. It is your food. So that's what's unique about it.
Justine Reichman: So what would you say is the most revolutionary part of what you're building?
Amber Benson: I really think the freeze drying is something. Freeze drying isn't a new technology, but to freeze dried fruits and veggies in this way is really unique. It's hard to powder fruits and vegetables that have been freeze dried because there's zero moisture in there so it wants to pull moisture from the air the second you powder it. It took a lot of trial and error to get us to where we are and create this free flowing powder. Unfortunately, the only way we can package it right now is in the single serve usage because you put it in a time and then it turns into a hardened brick if we don't add all of the stuff to it. So I think being able to keep it clean with no added ingredients is what really clicks for customers. They go in, they look at this label and say, oh, my gosh, I can read everything on this label because we're not filling it with other things. So that's a trend that I think a lot of food companies are moving to. But gosh, every day that I look at food labels and I think, why is it still in our food? There's ways that we can without adding all of that to the food.
Justine Reichman: It certainly speaks to me because I don't like when people add sugar to things. I don't really like very sweet things unless I have a craving for a cookie in particular. But all these different kinds of sugars, whether it's a coffee, or this or that, I don't actually like the aftertaste of it. I like the taste of the fruits and vegetables. So for me, it's just masking that. And I'm not sure if that was what they were going for, or they just thought the masses needed to do that. But for me, the taste of a fruit, or vegetables, or mixture comes down to the combination of the fruits or vegetables. And that of itself, if it's the right combination, it should be able to stand alone.
Amber Benson: For a long time, we didn't have flavors on the products because we're like, well, it's just flavored by the fruit and vegetable that's in it. And then we tried to pinpoint what it tastes like because so many people want to know, well, what does this red one taste like? Well, it's a little bit tart because there's raspberries and tart cherries. These berries provide that kind of sweetness to it. So it's called tart Berry, but it's the food and the fruits mostly that flavor it.
Justine Reichman: I agree. Do you have a favorite flavor?
Amber Benson: Mine changes all the time. For the longest time, it was this red one. And usually, this one wins in the summertime because it's got that tartness that you crave when it's hot. But I think right now, the green is winning out for me. I'm almost going to this green one. Well, I shouldn't say every day that I try to rotate through the colors because variety is important. But this is the one. When I'm really craving, I go for this one.
Justine Reichman: And of course, you gotta eat the rainbow.
Amber Benson: I know. And we've got a pretty good start at the rainbow. We need a few more colors, but there's our rainbow.
Justine Reichman: I just had the orange one last night.
Amber Benson: That one's so good. Whenever somebody wants to try it for the first time, I usually have them do the orange. It's a really nice kind of mellow, creamy with a banana. So it's definitely a winner.
Justine Reichman: I don't tend to read instructions. It's not something that I'm proud of. But of course, I'm pouring the powder and then the water, I'm filling it up. And then I'm reading the instructions and it says, do this before you do this. I messed up the whole thing. And then add ice for best taste. But even with all the upside down and backwards ways that I used to make the drink, it still came out really great. And as I showed you in our little video clip, which we will show for those listening in Washington, tune into Instagram, you know our Facebook or something, we will make sure to show that before we share this episode so you can hear. He had nothing to lose or gain, he just tried it. And his answer was so honest that I couldn't wait to share it with them or before we got going.
Amber Benson: Glad that you still liked it without reading the instructions. Let's say you put this much water in and then put Ruvi, and it's not going to be very sweet. So yeah, I think we've been starting to put stickers on the bottle that says, only put this much water.
Justine Reichman: Did I miss it? Oh, shoot. Well, it was fine. I was too excited. As we wrap this up, I'm curious if there are any hardening statistics that you could share in regards to health and Ruvi?
Amber Benson: We haven't done anything specific to Ruvi and health. But when you go and read about fruits and vegetables, there's a big carnivore trend right now. And so I've been following that closely and looking more into the studies, but I would say that if you ever are wondering like, are fruits and vegetables necessary? Just go into PubMed and search fruits and vegetables, or any kind of specific fruit and vegetable, and you'll find thousands of studies done on fruits and vegetables. What they can do for you for your immune system, your brain health, your heart health, which is our number one killer in the United States. For your digestion, of course, your gut health which is such a big and important thing right now. There's so much we could talk about. Fiber is so big right now, and 97% of Americans are not getting enough fiber. You don't have to go far to find information about fruits and vegetables and what they do for your body. We just need to get more. We need to get more, and that's what we're hoping, hopefully doing with Ruvi.
“You don't have to go far to find information about fruits and vegetables and what they do for your body. We just need to get more.” —Amber Benson
Justine Reichman: Well, thank you so much for joining me today. And for those folks listening or watching, where is the best place to find more of it?
Amber Benson: Go to our website, goruvi.com. R-U-V-I, its roots of life. goruvi.com, and your listeners get a coupon. Do you want me to share that? Or are you sharing that in?
Justine Reichman: I love to share that.
Amber Benson: Essential20. So the number 20, essential20.
Justine Reichman: We'll put it in the show notes. Perfect.
Amber Benson: When you go into our website, you can go buy a seven pack that gives you a variety. Your listeners or power users, right? I would say to go in and do the month pack. It's called a 28 pack. You can subscribe to it and save a bunch of money. And we drink them every day. We drink more than one a day because my husband is drinking, him and my kids. Sometimes, it's really the perfect way for you, for your family to consume better fruits and vegetables.
Justine Reichman: Awesome. Thank you so much for joining me today.
Amber Benson: Yes, it was great to talk to you. Thank you so much.
