Today we’d like to introduce you to Mary Cope.
Mary, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
My passion for health and wellness was sparked at age 21 when I realized that “healthy eating” habits may be causing my energy to drop along with headaches and body aches. I started researching holistic health and learned that diet food may not be the best fuel for my body.. the healthy foods I was consuming at that time we actually full of fake sugars and chemicals that in fact, were making me sick! As I slowly changed over my habits aka. Water, real food, and more water, I could not believe the changes I experienced.
I decided to attend the Institute for Integrative Nutrition, which was based out of NYC at the time to receive my Health Coaching Certificate. My mission was to help people live and feel their best by eating what was best for their bodies and not what the fad was at the time. Fast forward ten years later, I started a corporate wellness company with my friend and co-founder of Live Pure, Tiffany Tatom in Lynchburg, VA. We grew the company fast and successfully worked with clients from all backgrounds. It was such a fun and fulfilling time in my life and I am thankful for all of those who believed in our nontraditional program.
As we shared our recipes with clients, we discovered that one of our green smoothie recipes (now the Game Changer) was a HIT. When I say hit, people were freaking out, writing us that they couldn’t go without it. We are from a small town but no joke, Medjool dates were sold out at the grocery store! Our mission was to develop recipes that were reasonable and tasted DELICIOUS but I guess our Game Changer was the best one yet. We did have clients complain that they were “not making them right” or they weren’t consistent so to solve the problem we would prepack all the ingredients in ziplock bags so they could dump and go. Well, that grew. We hired people (paid them in smoothie packs) to come in and help us measure and pack bags for our clients. We decided to come up with more recipes and joked about making it our side business. One thing lead to another and here were are!
Superfood Smoothie Cubes. Tiffany and I decided to put our Corporate Wellness company aside (we are nuts) and start Live Pure. We launched Livepure.love as a direct-to-consumer company that has shipped nationwide since day one! We focused on that for two years and have recently launched our retail line which is carried in Seaside Market and Erehwon on the West Coast and Whole Foods on the east coast. We have also extended our cubes to the foodservice arena and have partnered with Virgin Hotel Dallas & Chicago along with universities who are feeling the demand for healthy options! Our smoothie cubes are USDA Organic, Gluten & Dairy Free, Probiotic infused, no added sugar + 0 food waste. The cubes can blend in under 20 seconds or can melt and shake into a smoothie without a blender. They are super versatile in so many arenas and we are proud to use high-quality ingredients that were carefully chosen and flash-frozen to preserve nutrients.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Smooth? Not even a little bit. In fact, we experience bumps in the road daily. The life of a start-up and entrepreneur is tough but if I have learned anything for this experience, it is perspective. We have made costly mistakes along the way but we always figure out a way to get passed them and keep going. Personally, I question myself daily. I am not smart enough, creative enough, I do not have the education this person has… I am being a crappy mom and wife. I think we all go through it at some point in our life. That is when perspective and the power of positivity is so important. Every failure we have flipped into a learning opportunity. And on a personal note, I check myself and take a step back and check off all the amazing things we have accomplished along the way.
Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about Live Pure Smoothie Cubes – what should we know?
Since day one we have sought out local ingredients to support farmers who go the extra mile to take care of their crops and the earth by growing fruits and vegetables without pesticides. Because we use exotic ingredients, we also resource dragonfruit, acai, and superfoods from around the world. Our dragonfruit or pitaya is by Pitaya Plus (shoutout to Chuck) who supports single mothers in Nicaragua. Live Pure smoothie cubes are also packed in resealable and reusable bags that contain multiple servings to cut down waste. Although we see the convenience in using cups like other smoothie companies, we wanted to skip the single-serve plastic. We have also given back since day one to Non-profits like Kenya Kids Can who feed kids in Africa.
On a consumer perspective, our pre-blended cubes are kid-approved and were developed to fuel you with superfoods but taste delicious. We have found that healthy food gets bad publicity because “it tastes too healthy”. They are also super versatile- you can feed a kid five cubes or your superstar athlete 20 cubes! When you purchase a large bag of 60 cubes, you can pick your serving size which is spectacular!
Is there a characteristic or quality that you feel is essential to success?
The love I have for my family. I want my children to believe in hard work and perseverance. I hope that Live Pure is able to support our dreams of traveling the many places we want to go one day. They have been nothing but loving and supportive through the ups and downs as grow Live Pure and I am super thankful for that.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.livepure.love
- Email: mary@livepure.love
- Instagram: @livepurecubes
Image Credit:
Arielle Levy
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