Family Business
Some will say our story started in a kitchen, but the truth is our story started long before we were born in the beautiful Eastern Caribbean Island of St Lucia. Two out of the three of us BOODies are from St Lucia, it's the birthplace of our grandparents, it is where they met and started a family.
Our grandparents were a part of the Windrush generation, our grandfather came to London in 1958 followed by our grandmother a year later.
Back home in St Lucia they left behind family and a family business - a banana plantation. The business thrived between the 1950s – 1990s, and they began exporting bananas across the Caribbean, Canada, USA and the UK. These very same bananas were sold in London, in Rigley Market and Marks & Spencer’s. Unfortunately, the banana industry declined for the family due to strong competition from low-cost Latin American producers and reduced European preferences.
Seamoss Trade
Fast forward to the year 2020 - this is where our generation stepped in to revive the family business spirit, not in the banana trade but in the Seamoss trade. Our grandmother sadly passed away in February 2020 and the whole family flew over to St Lucia from London to bid our granny Grace farewell.
Whilst in St Lucia, we spoke about the differences between the health of our senior female family members compared to the males. The men in our family are greatly outlived by the women; our great-grandmother lived until 109 years old, and our great aunt will turn 100 in September 2023. We discussed the reasons for this, and diet kept coming up as a key part to the longevity of the women.
A spoonful of Seamoss a day keeps the…
Digging deeper we released that they all used Seamoss daily as a key part of their diet.
Armed with just £100 + a heap of knowledge!
We travelled back to London together with a bag of Seamoss and the decision to start a brand based on the health choices of the women in our family back in St Lucia.
We started our business with a simple investment of £100. Armed with critical information from our family that ran the banana business in the 1950s, we were guided with the dos and don’ts of running a business like this and we continue to be mentored by our family today.
Affordable Health & Wellbeing
Our aim is to share not only our family health secrets but to make healthy choices affordable and attainable for consumers using natural products. We are a 360-family run business. Our cousins farm our Seamoss sustainably and grow other ingredients on family land in our country of heritage, the beautiful Eastern Caribbean island of St Lucia. Using a family recipe inspired by our aunts, we then turn the Seamoss into gel here in London.
Family and heritage mean a lot to us, and we are so grateful to be able to share this with you all.
Love, Bood x