Fittingly named from the Latin for ‘pure and clean’, CLUO is a premium health and beauty drink range, which breaks the mould, straddling cosmetic and drinks markets in both packaging, design, ingredients and claims; and launches from the Food Matters Live show with three deliciously innovative, refreshingly hydrating and exotically fruity variants …
- Watermelon, Kaffir Lime & Green Tea
- Mango, Passion Fruit & Green Papaya
- Red Grape & Hibiscus Flower
All three pack a whopping 98% moringa infusion, using organic leaves imported from India, and use only natural ingredients, including stevia as a natural sweetener. CLUO has been rigorously laboratory tested at ALS Food and Pharmaceuticals and is proven to be a rich source of zinc, vitamins B6 & A, which contribute to the maintenance of healthy skin and hair, and vitamin C that contributes to protection from oxidative damage of the DNA, proteins and lipids.
- Weight: 250ml bottle
- RRP: £2.99 each
- Availability: http://www.cluo.co.uk (from 17th October 2015)
- Product sectors: chilled, ambient, ready-to-drink, soft drinks
The “miracle tree” …
Beyond any other ‘superfood’, the Moringa Oleifeira tree, indigenous to the South Asian Himalayan foothills, is incomparably packed with health bestowing goodness. Not least, all eight essential amino acids, including lys, which aids collagen formation, methionine, which provides sulphur, preventing hair, skin and nail problems, and threonine, which forms an important part of collagen, elastin and enamel proteins. Little wonder that it is to be found in so many skin and hair products.
It is also loaded with 90 nutrients, from calcium and vitamins A, B, C, D and E, to minerals like copper, zinc, iron, magnesium, silica and manganese; plus 30 different antioxidants. In short, moringa leaves have four times the calcium and twice the protein of milk, seven times the vitamin C of oranges, four times more vitamin A than carrots, 25 times more iron than spinach, and three times more potassium than bananas. This is one seriously overachieving plant.
CLUO leads predicted growth of ‘nutricosmetics’ sector …
Incredible, then, that it has taken until now for an RTD range, harnessing this potent ingredient, to be launched in the UK, into one of the fastest growing Food and Beverage sectors: health and beauty drinks.
The “nutricosmetics” market is booming in the US with Global Industry Analysis predicting it will reach $7.4bn in the next five years “and ready-to-drink beauty beverages are the strongest growing product in the segment.” The trend, they claim, is “driven by the beauty-from-within trend and the resulting preference for oral nutritional supplements for appearance maintenance.”
The CLUO journey …
CLUO is the brainchild of the whirlwind that is Pearl Jarrett. In 2010 she set up The Jarrett Foundation, after noticing a skip full of discarded, yet perfectly serviceable, school furniture outside a local Bromley school. Since then, she has diverted 70 tonnes of school equipment from Bromley landfills into containers and off to 136 schools across Jamaica, Sierra Leone and The Gambia. In 2015 alone, The Jarrett Foundation supplied equipment to 7,000 Jamaican children.
It was on one such delivery trip to Jamaica in 2013 that Pearl, then recovering from stomach cancer and determinedly pursuing a healthy lifestyle, stumbled across moringa leaves in a local market. “After being told of the amazing properties of the tree, I bought a large bag full home to the UK.” she explains.
“I would boil it, strain it and drink it. The process was tedious, but it was comforting to know that I was putting something that good inside me. That was the most important thing at the time. It wasn’t until later that I noticed my skin was smoother and more supple. This was a lovely surprise. It sent me on a hunt for the convenience of ready-to-drink moringa, to discover, remarkably, that no such product existed.” “
When my son was subsequently diagnosed with leukemia in 2015 (now thankfully fully recovered)”, she continues, “I became all the more focused on the health of my family and decided to develop one such product myself. Having never had any experience of the Food and Drink industry, it has been an incredible learning curve, but we have a remarkable, trailblazing and, most importantly, delicious product to show for it.”
“As CLUO has so many nutrients, with such a breadth of benefits, its possibilities are endless, limited only by our imagination. Thus, we continue our NPD work to target myriad issues that can benefit from our superior organic superfood. Stay tuned for a CLUO just for you!”
London Travel, Drink & Food 