EP255. How moringa oil is helping one Amazonian community protect its future

The beauty industry is built on natural ingredients. But how often do we stop to ask where those ingredients come from and who grows them and what impact they're having on the world? Because ultimately, behind every bottle of oil or jar of cream, there's a story. And it's one that often goes untold. Well, today we're shining a light on those stories. My guest is Chloe Vallee, co founder of Prime Green, a social enterprise bridging the gap between European beauty brands and Latin American growers. Chloe and her co founder Jeremy's journey began on a farm deep in the Amazon, where they stumbled across a plant that would change everything. I'm talking about moringa. Described as the miracle tree, moringa doesn't just nourish the skin. It's also helping to reforest landscapes, sustain communities and create ethical value chains that challenge the beauty industry. In this episode, Chloe's going to share how Prime Green works differently to ensure ingredients such as Moringa oil and cacay oil and Sacha Inchi oil are sourced ethically. We'll uncover the realities of working with growers in Peru, Colombia and Brazil, the environmental benefits of these ingredients, and why storytelling might just be the key to transforming how the beauty industry approaches sustainability. So if you've ever wondered how you, either as a formulator or a brand founder or a beauty shopper, can drive change through your choices in ingredients and products, this is the conversation you need to hear. So let's get started. Welcome to Green Beauty Conversations, in which I challenge the beauty beauty industry to become sustainable, champion, independent and green beauty and encourage you to join me in changing the beauty industry for better. I'm your host, Lorraine Dallmayer. I'm a chartered environmentalist, biologist and the CEO of award winning online organic cosmetic formulation school, Formula Botanica. We have tens of thousands of students in over 190 countries around the world who study with us to become organic beauty formulators and entrepreneurs. Visit our website@formulabotanica.com to try our free online formulation course. And if you want to be the first person to know what's happening in green beauty, make sure you subscribe to this podcast in your favorite podcast app. So in today's episode, I'm joined by Chloe Vallee, the co founder of Prime Green, which is a social enterprise working directly with producers of natural and sustainably grown ingredients from Latin America. Prime Green only works with ingredients that have an environmentally responsible and ethical profile, which means no deforestation, no use of water, and having a positive impact on the sociobio economy. Chloe and Jeremy Started the brand to revolutionize the beauty industry through ethical sourcing. Their mission is to merge sustainability with innovation, empowering beauty brands to create products that are as good for people as they are for the planet. Prime Green connects buyers in the cosmetics industry and growers of natural speciality ingredients, allowing growers access to global markets to improve local living conditions. While cosmetics brands get access to a premium quality product. And ultimately it then allows shoppers access to new and exciting personal care experiences.

Hi Chloe, how are you doing today?

Hi Lorraine. Very good, thank you. And you?

I'm so pleased that you're here. Yes, I'm doing brilliantly and I'm so interested in what you've built and what you're doing in your business. So let's start with that. Can you tell us a bit more about you and Prime Green? What do you guys do?

Yes, sure, Lorraine. So I'm Chloe Vallee, I'm co founder of Prime Green. So we actually a social enterprise, we are working directly with farmers of natural ingredients from Latin America. And we work actually only with ingredients which have a sustainable profile. So which means which doesn't trigger deforestation, which is very limited amount of water overall. We ensure we have a positive impact on the socioeconomy while sourcing this ingredient. We really want to with Prime Green, create ethical and sustainable value chains. So really by connecting actually the cosmetic industry and the growers. So really to allow growers to access global markets and improve their living conditions. We do that by helping them actually to reach for example European quality standards for the ingredients and also especially promote specialty ingredients to the cosmetic industry. Because as I say, so it's specialty ingredients. We don't work with commodities, so they are not yet really known by the cosmetic industry. But that's what is really then so exciting for us to do all this work to help the growers. And then we provide also a seamless sourcing and inspiring stories so brands can share also with final consumer and inspires and the consumer to invest as well in this specialty ingredients who have a great impact on the people and the environment.

Amazing. So before we start to talk more about why you did what you did and why you've created your business just very quickly, what kind of ingredients do you sell?

So we have mostly vegetable oils at the moment. So just to cite a few of them, we have the Moringa oil, Cacao oil, the Buriti oil. We have also Sachin Chi oil. So they are from Peru, Colombia, Brazil. We have also butters. So very innovative ingredients.

Yes, they sound absolutely beautiful. We'll talk a little bit more about each one of those. Well, not all of them later, but we're going to talk more about the stories behind some of them. But before we do that, why did you start Prime Green? What was the main driver behind it?

Actually our main driver at the start was to really help small enterprise in Latin America. So actually we choose Latin America because my partner has really a link with Latin America. So we thought, well, indeed, it's a good starting point. We did quite some research actually from a home in Rotterdam to understand actually what we could do, who we could help. Actually it's quite wide thing. So we started actually to do quite some network in several countries in Latin America. But all of this from Europe and at one point we had really good contact in Peru. So we decided actually to go there for a few months to really enter more in contact with the locals and really understand what was their main problem and how we could help to solve their problem. Long story short, at one point we had really good contact with Ministry of Agriculture in Peru. They sent us in the Amazon to visit a farm. The farmer needed some help, especially actually with the local market. So to market his products from the Amazon to Lima to the capital. And there I discovered actually the moringa who was growing widely there. And then we saw that would be actually a good starting point. I really, I'm a pharmacist, I love plants, understanding their effects on health. And I thought, well, I know moringa is actually very now starting to be trendy in Europe, so there could be a good market for it. And then we found a producer, a grower of moringa who actually needed quite some help because he was only selling locally his moringa and he didn't have yet the quality to export to Europe and all the regulatory certification and so on. So we really help him with that. And now we are proud to say that we can sell his even organic certified moringa oil to European international market. Actually.

So tell me a little bit about Moringa because I think that was one of the first ones in your portfolio. Then by the sounds of things, how has it been received by the beauty industry and how exactly is moringa really helping these farms?

Yeah, so first of all, moringa has incredible sustainable profile. That's also why we we so excited about it, especially in this region of Peru where it grows, it grows in a really desertic area, so where no many plants can actually grow. So it really participates to the reforestation actually of this area, even if it's still very diverse environment. So the Grower tries to also grow other type of plants like jojoba. But to come back to the moringa. So it passes to reforestation. It doesn't need much water actually. It grows really fast. So from the start point that you plant it eight months later you can actually harvest it. So you can really scale up very quickly. It doesn't need any pesticides. It's really resistant to play. So you cold press the seeds of the moringa. When you cold press the seeds, you get the oil and you also get a cake that is reused to fertilize the soil where the moringa grow. So that's the sustainable profile of the moringa in terms of social impact. So the grower is actually also building a small village next to his plantation. Because his plantation is quite far from the main city. Even if it's already quite a small. Employees need to get on a bus every day to do really long distance. So in terms of well being and being far away from the family is not great. So he's building this village to really welcome actually the workers and their family during the week. So then they can really spend a bit of time, still see their children during the week. So we really always ensure that we can also have really this social impact. Our aim is to invest even more and get more social project going on in the future. And to go back to the moringa oil. It has also amazing benefits actually in cosmetics. So for the skin, for the hair, we call it like do it all ingredient. It's great for every type of skin, but especially acne prone skin, sensitive skin because it has anti inflammatory and antibacterial molecules. There are scientific. That's the question I have quite often if there are scientific proof. There are some scientific publications available online. But we are actually now currently setting up clinical studies with the help of the Peruvian Ministry of Agriculture. We hope we know that the cosmetic industry always wants proof. So we are working on this. And yeah, the moringa is extremely also give extreme hydration and it's also amazing to lock the moist moisture in the. In the hair like it does also on the skin. And it's great as it has a lot of vitamin E as well. So a great antioxidant as well for the scalp. As I said, it's really when I discover it actually I drop. My partner was really happy. I dropped all my cosmetics bottles. I added my bathroom and started to only use this. It's only moringa.

I love it.

Such amazing products. Yeah.

So you went over to Peru, you started to work with the Ministry of Agriculture, you discovered this farm with this incredible ingredient and then you thought, okay, I can turn this, we can turn this into a business, we can help these people, but also connect with the cosmetics industry. But then you didn't just stop at Moringa. So what was the process to expanding to all these other ingredients as well?

Yeah, so at one point, so what we've done when we came back to Europe, of course, we started to talk to potential customers to really understand the market. What was the demand? So there were some demand indeed for Moringa oil. But then how it work in the cosmetic industry that of course, when there is so much administrative get to approve you, let's say as a supplier, they usually ask you what else do you have in your portfolio? So that's where we started to think, well, indeed, let's try to add a few more ingredients even if we couldn't get a huge portfolio, because that's not our aim. And we want really to provide first high quality, validate our supply chain and also a very stable supply chain which is not so easy for natural ingredients. So that's one of also main objectives to provide this very stable supply chain. And our customers, they can have also all along the year at will is a moment where we tell them they can have the ingredients they request. So yeah, we started again to network and we found other amazing ingredients. So the buriti and acai oil which comes from.

They're beautiful.

Yes. Yeah. The acai oil has smell, amazing smell of the berry and super rich in antioxidant as well. And the buritis really rich in beta carotene, also amazing oil. And they come from really indigenous communities very deep far in the Amazon in Brazil. And yeah, same for this oil, we ensure so that they are sourced ethically so that for example, the buritis, they need to climb actually to the palm tree to get the fruits instead of. We know that some growers will actually cut the tree, so it will really trigger a lot of deforestation. But we really ensure that of course, grower resource climb also safely on top of the tree also without employing children to do this. They also let some fruits on top of the tree for the animals because of course they need it also for the communities around. So yeah, that's one of the many stories we have on all our ingredients.

I love it. I love it. And one thing that you do differently, which, because I've spoken to many ingredient suppliers over the years of all the time I've been doing this, and one thing that you do differently is you actually sort of go and almost live with the suppliers for a while, don't you? I mean, I have to say, we speak to a lot of ingredient suppliers at Formula Botanica and I don't think I've ever met anyone who goes to live with the, with the suppliers of their ingredients. So talk to me more about how that works, why you decided to do that for us.

It's actually very important to know perfectly, of course, the ingredients, so really get the local knowledge how also it's used. That for me was actually always my dream to go to, even as a pharmacist, you know, to go to small villages, talk to the doctor and understand how they cure people with natural ingredients. Still something I would like to do. But now indeed I want to do this also with these cosmetic ingredients. So to get as much as possible local knowledge, but also to understand what is there really their issue. Because if you stay in Europe and you assume that they have some problems and then you set up some social projects that actually they don't really need, then it's nonsense. So same in terms of also quality logistics. We really want to go there to understand what is their routine, how do they work, and then we can really help them with our knowledge. I didn't say in the introduction, but I'm more the technical person, company, I have a technical background. My partner Jeremy is more on the business side. So we are really complementary and that's what we want to bring actually to the growers. So really the knowledge we got here and try to help them to get better quality, better products so they can grow their business and hire more people, scale up. Because usually actually for this ingredient, they are easily to scale up. It's just a matter of so harvesting more now.

I think it's beautiful what you're doing. I think it's absolutely fascinating and possibly a model for the rest of the cosmetics industry if they start to really think about their supply chains, which I know many of the big players are doing now. I know many of our listeners will be familiar with Moringa oil, Buriti oil, such anchor oil, these beautiful, beautiful ingredients that you stock. Tell me more about the social impacts that you've seen now that you've been working with these farmers for a while.

Now, in terms of social impact, you really see that, as I was saying, for the Moringa oil, since we started to help the grower, that he can indeed scale up his production, then he can employ more people. It's really in general actually improving the living condition of the communities there. And Employees of the workers, let's say.

And I know that will be really important to many beauty brands, particularly the smaller ones. When we first met, you described Prime Green to me as wanting to bridge the gap between European buyers and Latin American growers. Why do you think this gap is so pronounced?

Yeah, because I think in terms of communication, they don't have the same understanding of, as I was saying, quality standards of even timings. That's one of our actually added value at primegreen that we like to brainstorm actually with our customers, especially actually the formulators. We try to really understand what are their needs and then we can brainstorm back with the growers, then try to match the needs of the customer and what the grower can do. And then it came actually very interesting when you want to also innovate. So of course, when you produce this natural ingredient, you get also by products. That's something we know because we are also so close with the producer, we spend a lot of time with them, so we know exactly how they produce the oil. So then we can really feedback this to the customer and think together actually what we could do to also use these by products. And also we can, in terms of. I was talking about certification, for example. If we really understand the demand in Europe, for example, of the cosmetic industry, we can feed back also to the growers so they understand also what they need to do. Like, for example, for the Moringa oil, when we understood that having the organic certification was extremely important for the European market, then that's where we decided with the grower to really help him to get the certification. Because for them, it's really something for him, he was growing already organically, so he didn't understand why he would need actually to be certified. So that was indeed quite convincing work from us.

Yeah, I can imagine.

Yeah.

Is it difficult or is it challenging to convince the buyers in the cosmetics industry to start to prioritize sustainable sourcing and ingredients that have a social impact. Are you seeing that there is interest in the mainstream cosmetics industry?

Yes. Yeah, we see there is interest. That's indeed really good news. More and more we see that actually the industry is really interested in also transparency. Then we had a lot of customers asking us, how can you prove this as well? So that's when we decided to be member of uebt, the Union for Ethical Bureau Trade. I think it's indeed a great, let's say, certification. We are not yet certified. It takes time to really have every supply chain certified, but at least we are members. So it means that we comply to their minimum requirement, which is to not create deforestation, to ensure that the producer have all living wage, they don't employ children and so on. For us was really important to be member of such tech consortium of companies and to really prove indeed that we source ethically, but also we are really working also on storytelling and then showing. We are actually visiting, while visiting the growers, we are actually making small movies to really demonstrate who are the people behind their stories, how is the harvest made, how the manufacturing is made. So then even the final consumer can really understand where the ingredients are coming from.

Yeah, I was going to ask you about that actually because I think that is a very innovative way of doing things as well. How do you think that storytelling can really help change the industry's mindset around sustainable sourcing?

Yeah, I think that's really a great way to, to build awareness, especially for the final consumers. Now we see actually there are so many different types of certifications. I think people are a bit lost with all of this.

Very true.

And not only consumers really our growers for them is really a pain. So I think it's really a simple way actually to really demonstrate where the ingredients coming from and I hope to open the eyes also of people who are people behind and why it's so important also to buy products with ingredients which are ethically sourced.

Yes, I think what you're doing is absolutely beautiful. So what's next for Prime Green?

What's next? So we really believe in strong partnership. So we want to develop even more. Our sourcing partner claim that's something I didn't mention yet, but that's some. We really try to build on this to really source more specialty and upcycled ingredients, but also based on on our customers demand. So we really want our customers to benefit then from our agility to source sustainable Ingredients and in 2025. So we'll keep visiting our producers and validating their new supply chains.

And I think you're actually going over to Latin America pretty soon after recording this, aren't you?

Yes, exactly. Now we go indeed for three months to Brazil, Peru, in Colombia, as we say indeed to be really close to the growers and also take some video content interview of the farmers to indeed tell the story.

I am very, very envious. It absolutely sounds beautiful. I wish I could go to Latin America for three months. Sounds like a great way to run your business as well. So where do you see prime green in five to 10 years time?

Well, I hope we will be able to help more and more guru us and really also measure the impact we had on the sociobioeconomy of this region. So that's really something I would love to do.

So I love it. And hopefully you'll be helping to make the cosmetics industry supply chains even more transparent, which is certainly something that the mainstream beauty industry desperately needs. So there'll be a lot of people listening right now who are thinking, I would like to try this moringa oil, I'd like to try this cacaje oil, this sacha inchi oil, all these beautiful ingredients that you have. Where can people get in touch with you and find out more about Prime Greens?

Yes. So you can go on our website Primegreentrade.com you can also follow us on LinkedIn. So just with Prime Green name and as well on Instagram. So it's PrimeGreen BeautyIngredients. And there you will actually see a lot of videos of indeed our interviews of farmers or videos on how our ingredients are produced, harvested. So we'll really try to put more and more really educational content there.

Amazing. Well, we'll include all of those links in the show notes below this this episode. Thank you so much Chloe for joining me. It's been really lovely talking to you and good luck with Prime Green.

Thanks so much Lorraine. Thanks for inviting me.

Goodbye.

Bye.

I would love to hear your thoughts on this episode. Have you ever worked with moringa or Sacha inchi oils or any of the other ingredients we talked about today? How do you think sustainable sourcing could transform beauty? Leave us a comment on our social channels as both the Formula Botanica team and I love hearing from you and if you want to hear more about some of the topics we covered, please do delve back into the podcast archives as well. I recently interviewed two other brilliant ingredient suppliers which you can Hear in episode 239, for instance, in which I interviewed Jane Dunlop of Alouan, who's also driving forward her mission of sustainable sourcing on the Indonesian island of Simalu. Or episode 235 in which I interviewed Caterina Rica of Encleta Seaweed Solutions in Portugal to talk about the way that they source seaweed using a biorefinery model. There's a wealth of information in our old episodes and I do encourage you to go back and listen to them. Thank you for joining Chloe and I for this latest episode of Green Beauty Conversations. I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, please do leave us a five star review so that other people can enjoy these conversations too. Make sure you subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or whatever your favorite podcast app is, and stay tuned for the next episode. Follow Formula Botanica Formula Botanica on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, Pinterest, LinkedIn. We're everywhere and come and give me a follow at Lorraine Dharmeyer on Instagram and LinkedIn. Visit our website@formulabotanica.com and sign up for our free online formulation course today.

Sam.