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Saint John, NB-based Millennia TEA Inc. received $78,515 in funding for a project titled Increasing Solubility and Bioavailability in Nutrient-dense Plants.
We spoke to Tracy Bell, co-founder of Millennia TEA, to find out more about the company and its project.
Q: Please explain what your company does and how your products are improving the food industry.
A: We have a patented process to share the mighty medicinal tea plant in its purest and most naturally-powerful format – working with small-scale organic farmers in the mountains of central Sri Lanka to pick, wash, and flash-freeze fresh tea leaves at their nutritional prime. And we are developing a new functional additive – a commercial ingredient – that will support human and planetary health.
Q: What is your company’s mission?
A: To Help Millions Live. Better. Longer.
Q: Why did you apply for this funding and how will you use it?
A: Building on our current process and washing and flash-freezing fresh organic tea leaves, we see incredible potential to take our process one step further, and create a nutraceutical that will help cellular health in meaningful and measurable ways – using both tea leaves, as well as other nutrient-dense leaves that are currently not being used (i.e. blueberry or haskap berry leaves). With this funding, we will embark on an R&D project to develop and test the science, and the use-case for these new additives in human biology, as well as in other better-for-you beverages and consumer brands.
Q: What excites you most about working in this area of the food industry?
A: The growing acceptance and recognition of functional foods and food-as-medicine is so exciting. It’s an industry shift that stands to change the way our families and populations consume, in such a way that will help people feel better and live longer, and by extension be happier and better positioned to contribute to a societal shift that will benefit the masses. That’s a movement we want to be a part of for sure!
Q: Why is collaboration so important for accelerating innovation in the food industry? Is it difficult to find good collaborating partners, and what would make the process easier?
A: We go further faster by working together and drawing on a collective body of experience and expertise. This is true in all areas of life and business. Creating spaces and opportunities to find and partner with like-minded organizations – who are values-aligned and bring the necessary variety of technological know-how and areas of genius to an endeavour – are central to the co-creative process of innovation and commercialization. Organizations such as CFIN are making this once-challenging feat of finding the right innovation partners much less of a barrier than it was in years prior.
Q: Please comment on the importance of public funding to help companies clear innovation hurdles and access leveraged funds.
A: Doing something new is a time-consuming and expensive process for sure. The contribution of funding partners through research and commercialization grants is an imperative part of advancing innovation in food. The kind of life-changing innovations we (and many others) are working to develop quite simply would not be possible without this kind of support. It’s quite literally the life-blood for early-stage innovators working to create positive change in the world through new technologies and novel ingredients.
Q: Looking ahead, what’s on the horizon for your company?
A: We want to help the food-as-medicine and supplement industries deliver products that better support peoples’ health. Our innovation has the potential to help health products and services perform more effectively at a cellular level – to make the antioxidants necessary to our health and longevity more bio-available. Through our CFIN project we will identify the best ways and means to do that.
Q: What are your passions or hobbies outside of work?
A: I’m a wannabe mermaid. My happy place is playing in the water: foil boarding, wake boarding, wake surfing, paddle boarding, rowing, kayaking, swimming, cold plunging – l love all of it. Those activities represent moments where I can be fully present and immersed in physical activities that support my overall wellbeing.
Q: If you had to pick one person to make you a meal, who would you choose?