Moringa Vinga Origin Story

November 15, 2024

It’s Rachael.

With the recent passing of my husband and business partner Michal I’ve found myself sharing with more and more people the Moringa Vinga story.

Sharing has been a real blessing.

Recently it dawned on me that many of our customers have never heard the Moringa Vinga ORIGIN story...

... at least from my perspective.

I’d love to share it with you now.

Here goes...

CHAPTER 1: A MATCH MADE IN HEAVEN?

My first date with Michal was October 1st, 2016.
We met at Avanti restaurant in Denver and sipped on Old Fashions.

I wore an old, orange, thin, puffy jacket.
Often my favorite for camping trips.

My hair was unbrushed and a bit wild.
I had on Birkenstock style flip flops.

I remember Michal wearing a button down shirt, hair perfectly combed, and slightly gelled.

He had on leather laced up shoes and nice pants.

We looked like we were going two different places...

... but as soon as we each said hi everything but our faces melted away.

I asked him about his nonprofit that did international work.

He tried to brush off my questions, later telling me he had been asked by so many girls on dates about it, but they didn’t seem to really care.

I cared and kept pressing.

He started sharing his heart and mindset for working alongside others to build something together.

I listened, slightly distracted by his adorable grin where his right top lip would rise higher than the other side.

And then I shared that I had just returned from my second trip to Zambia a few weeks prior.

I told Michal I was starting a company based on the Moringa tree, which I got to know while living in a rural village.

Ironically, Michal had just heard of the Moringa tree the first time a week before our date.

What are the chances?

We left that night after less than an hour of knowing each other - yet forever changed.

It was the beginning of two stories: (1) A true love story, and (2) Moringa Vinga.

Michal always said by our third date he knew I was the one.

CHAPTER 2: SURPRISE IN THE CITY OF LOVE

Six months after meeting we went on a service trip to Morocco.
On our return trip we had a one night layover in Paris.

We walked the streets that evening.

I had a loaf of bread, jar of olives and some cheese in a backpack , but Michal surprised me with a fancy dinner looking out over the Eiffel tower.

After dinner we found ourselves completely alone on a beautiful two-story carousel. We picked two horses running wild side by side.

Michal jumped from his horse to ask a stranger to take our picture.

On his way back, he got down on one knee and asked me to do life together as his wife.

Less than a minute after I said yes the Eiffel Tower went crazy with sparkling lights, as though someone cued it to celebrate!

I later journaled…

“I am so excited and grateful to be engaged to a man that daily (like every day) shows me intense love and patience wrapped in addictive joy and encouragement to be and do more.”

CHAPTER 3: MORINGA VINGA FINDS ITS WINGS

My birthday was a few weeks after getting engaged.

To celebrate Michal took us to an apothecary class where we made tinctures and infusions.

By this time, we had been tinkering around with a Moringa product for a few months.

And in case you’re wondering, we started the company by scraping together $1,500. It was enough to pay for licenses and ingredients.

At one point I considered making a Moringa tea blend.
Another idea was to use the powdered Moringa.

But nothing quite clicked.

Then at the class, we discovered a vinegar infusion base that just made sense.

That night at the class we made new friends.
One was a beekeeper.

Our beekeeper friend made us realize we wanted to bring wild honey into our product.

So we immediately started making our infusion of…

- unfiltered apple cider vinegar…
- chopped up raw ginger root with lemongrass, and of course…
- whole raw moringa leaves and local honey.

CHAPTER 4: OUR FIRST FARMERS MARKET

We finished our first batch the night before our first farmers market.

It was 2am and we were trying to organize everything before having to leave for the market at 6am.

That’s when I had my first meltdown.

“What are we doing. I think you’re supposed to try out a product with friends before you bring it to market”.

I started crying.
Michal calmly said, everything will be fine.

The next morning someone walked up to our booth and bought a drink.

It was a shot of our infusion mixed with sparkling water.

Michal made the drink while I stood in the back and held my breath in anticipation.

No one had tried this concoction other than Michal and me.

Oh my gosh, they like it!

Wow! And they want to buy a bottle.

By the end of the market that day we had completely sold out.

Moringa Vinga had launched!

CHAPTER 5: HAD I BECOME A DRUG DEALER?

As we started going to more and more farmers markets customers would come back and tell us what they were experiencing.

For example...

... An older woman was able to wear her rings that she thought she’d have to resize because of inflammation.

... People were seeing improvements in their allergies.

... One night I got a voicemail from a customer who asked (or more so demanded) I call him back right away.

I panicked! Oh no, did something go wrong!

I shakily called and learned it was a dad. He was calling because they were down to the last ounce of their infusion and they needed more.

His teenage son had been suffering from acne and since he had started incorporating our infusions his face was clearing up.

I felt like a drug dealer, trying to arrange a time and place to meet up to give him more. :)

CHAPTER 6: GRATITUDE AND GIVING BACK

On top of launching the business and planning a wedding, Michal was on a trip to Ethiopia that summer of 2017.

We wrote each other emails back and forth.

Letters I now appreciate so much, as we never wrote at that length again.

We were always so different.

Sometimes that led to arguments and other times it created such balanced beauty.

As one example, when we first launched Moringa Infusions, I wanted to donate 90% of our profits.

Michal calmly told me that if we donated that much we would simply go out of business.

Even though we seemed so different in so many ways, so much of our heart was the same.

Every winter we would curl up on the couch together.
We would pray for guidance and impact.

Then we would open up our checkbook and donate 15% of our profits.

CHAPTER 7: LIFE AS BUSINESS PARTNERS

We started by making 2 gallon batches at a time.

We hand poured the bottles to order at the market.

Our labels were printed at the copy shop and we would hand write them.

We only bought enough bottles to last us about 3 weeks of selling at a time.

This was a passion project I thought I would do on the side while pursuing some sort of career.

It was totally God.
How everything came together.
How everything kept growing.

We quickly realized how much customers were suffering with their diet and lack of simple and powerful ingredients straight from the earth, never heated or altered.

We thought we would mainly be making an impact in developing countries...

... but soon I found myself crying with customers at the booth, over things they were experiencing like regular bowel movements, or...

... how they bought our Ginger to help their moms nausea as she went through chemotherapy.

Every market we would get customer testimonials.

After 7 years we still were in awe of each story.

As we grew Michal and I often worked separate markets and we’d come back home, completely exhausted but still beaming as we shared customer stories.

When I had Ari (now 4 yrs old) I stepped back and Michal stepped into Moringa full time.

Michal made it grow with his business savvy skills.

He consumed books on business, management, and growth.
He went to conferences and joined think tanks.

He desired to get Moringa Vinga into more homes.

He was so passionate about our product, pouring his heart and soul into every batch.

And as we grew and started making much bigger batches he made sure the quality never changed.

We always took our time to make each infusion, which took about 6 weeks.

We still used a special press Michal designed to squeeze out each herb, flower and berry’s potency.

We still spent days (no months) researching how our honey was made and the difference between organic and raw (that is an entire email in itself).

We were taking everything straight from the land and never letting anything see the light of day in a lab.

So many times we would pick up another non-Moringa drink and be excited about it...

... and as we read the ingredients we would see something like Stevia (processed in a lab unless you are just using the raw leaves) or natural flavor (a whole new email there too!).

And we’ve never once compromised on our standard to always ensure every single Moringa Vinga ingredient had a purpose for you.

CHAPTER 8: LIFE WITHOUT MICHAL

This chapter has just started and I’m thankful you’re part of it.

I don’t know what all the future holds, but I do know that I’m as passionate and committed as ever to lead the Moringa Vinga story forward.

Thank you for listening to my story.
It matters more than you know.

Thank you for being a customer of Moringa Vinga.
It matters more than you know.

Thank you for your trust!
I don’t take it for granted.

With Love,

Rachael

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