Miami, FL — CARELA®, an innovative Bitter Melon Tea Beverage that helps Sugar Proof Your Life™ and backed by clinical studies, is pleased to announce the addition of three industry stalwarts to their Strategic Operational Advisory Board (SOAB) – focused squarely on growth and development. Bill Sipper of Cascadia Managing Brands will be developing this rising brand unparalleled market positioning while Andy Stallone of SAS Sales and Marketing will focus on maturing their sales and distribution. Renée Whitworth of Flood Creative will be instrumental in the brand’s visual and verbal positioning in relation to branding, packaging and design.
CARELA® is rolling-out a bold and authentic new brand narrative later this year supporting the millions of consumers who are sugar concerned. Backed by clinical studies of CARELA®, this tasty Bitter Melon infused beverage may help calm the effects of sugar. Bitter Melon, with the phytoconstituent called Charantin, has been widely consumed for centuries throughout the world as a nature-based, sugar busting ingredient and is now available in the US because of CARELA® soothing ready-to-drink and traditional loose tea, which can be cold-brewed.
CARELA® is thrilled to add the following individuals to the business:
Bill Sipper — Managing Partner at Cascadia Managing Brands — Bill is Managing Partner at Cascadia Managing Brands and has held senior-level positions at several of the top beverage marketers in the world including Evian, Clearly Canadian, Nantucket Nectars, Fresh Samantha/Odwalla, and Naked Juice. His market reach and depth of knowledge of the food and beverage industry includes North America, Asia, Europe as well as Central and South America. Sipper’s track record for helping develop rising brands is unparalleled and will be key to Carela’s development and deployment long-term.
Andy Stallone — CEO at SAS Sales and Marketing — Andy is CEO of SAS Sales and Marketing, and brings a wealth of experience from both the distributor as well as the supplier side of the beverage industry. He has been instrumental in helping to launch several start-up beverage brands including Arizona Iced Tea, Nantucket Nectars, Red Bull and Monster Energy. Andy’s strength in bringing new brands to market started with his own successful beverage distributorship, Boca Beverage Corp. which he sold after building it to become the first and exclusive distributor of Arizona Iced Tea in the state of Florida. Andy’s unique ability to partner towards success is without equal, and essential to CARELA® growth.
Renée Whitworth – Strategic Partner at Flood Creative — Renée is responsible for the strategic foundation of all client design initiatives within Flood Creative, bringing over two decades of expertise to visual and verbal positioning of brands across all spectrums from brand identity, packaging and print design for entrepreneurial products. Flood Creative is celebrating over 15 years of using award-winning design as a strategic weapon for helping contemporary brands break through and encouraging established brands to break rules, with proven results. Renée’s impact with CARELA® is already yielding results.
“The term ‘superfood’ is often overused within the beverage space today, but Bitter Melon truly deserves the title. Bitter Melon is regularly consumed abroad by sugar conscious consumers, but awareness is low in the US. We, at CARELA®, are pleased to be able to offer delicious Bitter Melon beverages backed by clinical research,” said CARELA® Co-Founder, Daniel Casanas. “There’s a mountain of research on all the ways a sugar-heavy diet can harm our health, but rarely do emerging brands clinically study their innovations as we did with CARELA®. We are beyond thrilled to have a bolstered SOAB to help us utilize and capitalize on these developments,” he continued.
CARELA® founders are confident that the brand will redefine what nature based functionality means. As noted by CARELA® Co-Founder, Gloria Reynolds, “We are excited by the addition of Andy, Bill and Renée to CARELA®. Our collective efforts ensure we become the transformational brand we intend and truly deserve to be.”
CARELA® Mission
Sugar Proof Your Life™ via CARELA® products that have delicious taste profiles, natural ingredients, and clinical research support.
About CARELA®
CARELA® is an internationally based tea brand infused with the ancient fruit called Bitter Melon. Bitter Melon is renowned for its health properties in Asia, Africa, Latin America and continues to emerge in Europe. CARELA® management spans various locations, from Miami, Florida who are driving the US distribution efforts, to Colombo, Sri Lanka where tea masters are expertly manufacturing and testing some of CARELA® finest blends, building off 50+ years of tea expertise since 1963.
Contact the Daniel Casanas, CARELA® co-founder, at 1-800-569-6941 for investment information.
CARELA® History
In 2013, CARELA® founder’s family members were struggling with sugar heavy diets, diabetes and high blood sugar. Several of them were eating or steeping dried Bitter Melon as a natural addition to proactive changes in their lifestyle to address sugar related challenges. It was at this point that CARELA® founders were introduced to “Karela,” the Indian name for Bitter Melon.
Product development began with CARELA® Tea Canisters initially, with high-end custom blended pyramid teas created exclusively in Sri Lanka by their tea masters and partner Eswaran Brothers Exports. This process was arduous because Bitter Melon has a natural taste profile that must be calmly subdued.
Product development continued onto ready-to-drink bottled beverages over the following year, resulting in a significant and sustained research & development investment lasting two years. Working with world-class formulators and building off tea masters from Eswaran Brothers, CARELA® successfully created delicious natural beverages that combined ultra-purified bitter melon extract with natural flavors.
The ultimate step for CARELA® was to embark on the first of many human clinical studies using actual CARELA® products in the USA. This was important to the founders because they started this journey to give science based optionality to family and friends who were becoming increasing sugar concerned. The 2017 published study, within a peer-reviewed journal, yielded compelling results which can be found here https://www.carelafoods.com/pages/our-clinical-study.
CARELA® Manufacturing
CARELA® Bottled Beverages are proudly made in the USA. CARELA® Tea Canisters are blended and carefully hand-packed in Sri Lanka by our partners Eswaran Brothers Exports, one of the first certified Carbon Neutral tea companies globally.
CARELA® prides itself on quality, and the manufacturing processes are supported by Quality Certifications ISO14001, ISO 22000 and HACCP.