Our series adVenture of Entrepreneurship highlights our heroes, those who embrace and embody the spirit of adventure throughout the journey of entrepreneurship – the highs and lows, successes and adversity. Those who see a problem or need as an opportunity, who work tirelessly to transform “impossible” to “possible,” “dream” to “reality.”
At Christie & Co, we believe true leaders to be people who find their inspiration in a place of deep passion and authenticity. Marie-Josée Richer, co-founder of PRANA, embodies this quality with every ounce of her being. Marie-Josée and her husband Alon Farber founded PRANA 11 years ago with a deep desire to change the world, through food.
Marie was just 24 when they started the company and they had just returned from 5 years of living India and Asia, a journey that inspired a deep appreciation of human interconnectivity. During their time there, they owned a vegan restaurant, Buddha Belly, in Goa that sourced its food from an onsite garden and a few tofu and lettuce producers, and its water from a well just 50 meters away. They truly learned how to live off the land and nourish themselves and their guests with organic, pure, homegrown plant foods.
After 5 years, they returned to Montreal with the intention of securing the proper papers to return to India and build a health center, but it never happened. Instead, PRANA was born. Why didn’t they return to India? “We didn’t even ask ourselves why,” says Marie, “our whole essence, our whole body just went with the flow.”
PRANA was founded upon the philosophy that food should be pure, wholesome and nourishing. Since day one, they imported only the best organic ingredients and transformed them into healthy snacks. Further, Marie and Alon have always seen the business as a conduit for catalyzing greater change, the products as the inspiration for the bigger conversations about people and the planet, using business as a force for good. PRANA has also recently been certified as a B Corp, joining a global movement of companies using business as a force for good. The B Corp certification is awarded globally to businesses with a higher Corporate Social Responsibility standard. There are 2,000 companies certified in 50 countries in over 130 industries.
Today, PRANA has 5 successful lines of 100% organic, non-gmo, vegan and gluten-free certified snacks (Chocolate Barks, Trail Mixes, Sweet & Salty Nuts, Coconut Chips and Chia) that sell at over 8,000 stores across Canada and the US. But they didn’t get here overnight – that growth was an adventure in itself.
After their transformative experience in India, Marie and Alon felt that they had the power to truly change the world through business. While they would later see the real impact of their beliefs in the dynamic growth and success of PRANA throughout North America, that success didn’t come without challenges.
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“When the market was ready,” she says, “we were really ready.”
Marie is proud of PRANA’s success, but also reminiscent about the adventure of growth it’s taken to get here. She looks back over the years as a wonderful journey.
“To be an entrepreneur is to be open to challenging yourself a lot and opening yourself to continuous change. It’s kind of the same as traveling by yourself, everyday you’re looking yourself in the mirror and you have to figure it out.”
Beyond growing a successful business rooted in integrity, Marie also celebrates PRANA’s ability to create institutional change. Being one of the first organic lines of its kind on the market, they were able to truly change the landscape of Canadian retailers. Before Alon and Marie were banging on the doors of retailers providing their innovative, organic products, one would be hard up to find soy milk on a grocery shelf. Over the years, they worked together with retailers to help them understand consumer demand and to elevate the naturals sections not only in grocery, but also convenience and wholesale.
“Now we are in the beautiful years,” she says. “It is beautiful to see within this journey how we planted the seed and started to see the sprout and then the trunk and the leaves and the fruit. In this journey, you impact the lives of many, many people and this is amazing.”
How did Marie and Alon persevere? “With a little money and a lot of ideas and hope, we just did it.”
How could you? “Follow your heart and intuition,” she says “and abundance will come from it.”
Learn more at prana.bio