Cluo has launched the first ready-to-drink beverage range to harness the health and beauty benefits of the superfood Moringa.
Cluo is a premium health and beauty drink range that will look to exploit a niche between the cosmetic and drinks markets – “nutricosmetics” – and is part of a snowballing trend toward “beauty-from-within” products. It is available in three refreshingly hydrating and exotic variants: watermelon, kaffir lime and green tea; mango, passion fruit and green papaya; and red grape and hibiscus flower.
Packaged in 250ml bottles with a recommended retail price of £2.99, all three pack 98% moringa infusion, using organic leaves imported from India and only natural ingredients, including the natural sweetener stevia. Each drink is a rich source of zinc; vitamins A and B6, which contribute to the maintenance of healthy skin and hair; and vitamin C, which helps to protect against oxidative damage to the DNA, proteins and lipids.
Cluo is the brainchild of mother-of-three Pearl Jarrett. In 2010, she set up The Jarrett Foundation, after noticing a skip full of discarded yet perfectly serviceable school furniture outside a school in Bromley, South London. Since then, the foundation has diverted 70 tonnes of school equipment from Bromley landfills into containers and off to 136 schools in Jamaica, Sierra Leone and the Gambia. In 2015 alone, The Jarrett Foundation supplied equipment for 7,000 Jamaican children.
Cluo founder Pearl Jarrett
It was on one such delivery trip to Jamaica in 2013 that Pearl, then recovering from stomach cancer and determinedly pursuing a healthy lifestyle, stumbled across moringa leaves in a local market. “After being told of the amazing properties of the tree, I bought a large bagful home to the UK,” she explained.
“I would boil it, strain it and drink it. The process was tedious, but it was comforting to know that I was putting something that good inside me. That was the most important thing at the time. It wasn’t until later that I noticed my skin was smoother and more supple. This was a lovely surprise. It sent me on a hunt for the convenience of ready-to-drink moringa, to discover, remarkably, that no such product existed.
“When my son was subsequently diagnosed with leukemia in 2015 (now thankfully fully recovered), I became all the more focused on the health of my family and decided to develop one such product myself. Having never had any experience of the food and drink industry, it has been an incredible learning curve, but we have a remarkable, trailblazing and, most importantly, delicious product to show for it.
“As Cluo has so many nutrients, with such a breadth of benefits, its possibilities are endless, limited only by our imagination. Thus, we continue our NPD work to target myriad issues that can benefit from our superior organic superfood.”
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