HOW FUNCTIONAL FOODS ARE CROSSING INTO THE BEAUTY REALM

In her recent article for WWD, Jayme Cyk highlights a few thriving functional food brands, including Gwell, that are blurring “the lines between the beauty and food and beverage industries.”

“Foods and beverages, once the purview of grocery store shelves, are borrowing ingredients from skin care formulas to provide a wealth of additional benefits, creating a new generation of functional foods that claim to have a positive effect on health beyond basic nutritional benefits.” - Jayme Cyk

The owners and founders of many of these notable functional food brands are interviewed in this article, including Gwell’s owner and founder, Fawziyya Sugai, who discusses the brand’s wellness and ethical missions:

“We don’t brand ourselves as a health product. They are indulgent treats that happen to have wellness benefits. … Our mission is to help people feel better, but it’s also to help improve food equity. We focus in on the key markets that our customers are in and where we do business. … And then we partner with local organizations there specifically around their initiatives.” - Fawziyya Sugai

Fawziyya continues on to discuss Gwell’s most recently released product, the Chocolate Maca Granola:

“The key ingredients are maca root and adaptogens. A serving includes the same amount that you would get in a typical supplement. With our snacks, we home in on focus, energy, stress relief and immune support because those are the key things people struggle within our community. So every single Gwell bite that we have is designed around providing one or more of those specific benefits.” - Fawziyya Sugai

You can read the entire article here, to learn more about Gwell and some other amazing functional food brands.