Meet Shanti Volpe of Shanti Elixirs

Today we’d like to introduce you to Shanti Volpe.

Hi Shanti, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
Hi there! My name is Shanti Sunshine Volpe and I am the founder, owner, + CEO of Shanti Elixirs a company inspired by the honeybees. I discovered inspiration for the world I wanted to build in the unlikeliest of places: beehives and bacteria!

This part of my journey began in 2016. I was then a nurse, lactation consultant, mother of 3, wife + beekeeper. I had learned about a Sacred Art of Beekeeping Workshop presented by Laura Bee, founder of The College of The Melissae and knew, in my gut, that I was meant to attend. Many barriers stood in my way, such as the cost of the workshop and my work schedule at the hospital. However, with the powers of the universe and some determination, I acquired a partial scholarship to attend and a co-worker covered my shift.

This workshop was being hosted by Rebecca Robertson, Bee Mystress Extraordinaire in her home. Before this moment, I had never experienced Jun. At the time, on a strict candida diet, I declined my first opportunity to try this life-changing elixir.

Rebecca began to explain exactly why I should try Jun. From the prebiotics and probiotics to the added ginger and the pure magic of healing Jun offers. After the first sip of Jun traveled through my body, I knew I needed to learn everything I could about brewing Jun.

After the workshop was over, Rebecca invited me to stay and learn all the stages of brewing, including flavoring. That very night was when our Shanti Elixirs’ mother SCOBY was acquired and a passion for Jun was born!

Soon after the workshop, I began to share my enthusiasm for Jun with my friends and family, brewing my own version with honey from my own Blissful Bee Apiary. Demand for these elixirs quickly began to grow sip by delicious sip. Word of mouth spread the tale of the tasty, good-for-you fermented tea, and Shanti Elixirs was born.

In creating this beverage company, I looked to the bees for guidance. A hive achieves its magic by working together. My passion, sense of purpose, and desire to collaborate attracted an extraordinary, compassionate, and dedicated group of individuals who now form the Shanti Elixirs’ hive.

Working together, the Shanti Elixirs’ team is dedicated to spreading well-being, peace, and good vibes through every sip of Jun – created and bottled in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Western North Carolina.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
The running of this small business has proven to be one of my greatest challenges. I have always believed that it is through struggle that we have our greatest growth opportunities and that is exactly what this business has done for me and my team. It has stretched me physically, mentally, spiritually, and emotionally. Although there were many obstacles leading up to the pandemic, the pandemic certainly heightened the intensity of my challenges.

The pandemic came around just as we were getting ready to soar as a small business. We were 3 years in and our non-alcoholic, probiotic beverage was available in over 130 locations in Western NC. We more than doubled our wholesale accounts in 2019 and exceeded our revenue goal of $270K for 2019. We had plans for doing pop-ups and opening up the first non-alcoholic Jun Bar on the East Coast. Our small hive was thriving with 10 employees at the start of 2020.

The first challenging COVID-related decision I made was calling off our successful fundraising campaign for a refrigerated delivery vehicle that was also going to serve as our on-tap pop-up for events. We had successfully raised over 60K with 89 investors but did not feel comfortable continuing due to the great uncertainty caused by the Covid-19 pandemic. I decided to put our plans on hold which meant returning everyone’s investments.

At first 90% of the businesses that we served shut their doors. I might add that was 70% of our revenue. I shared with my employees that I was planning to do whatever it took to keep them employed, find hours for them by pivoting some of our business plans and we would continue to serve our community in whatever way we could. Our health elixirs were needed now more than ever! The plan was to continue to forge ahead despite the uncertainty.

Fortunately, I am still working part-time as a nurse which allows me to make an income and provide insurance for my family while working on figuring out the best path forward for the business. To keep the business afloat and to ensure that I was paying a living wage, I had to pull money from my retirement and borrow money from my children on several occasions to help make payroll. Payroll was and still is our biggest cost because I place people above profits at Shanti Elixirs.

We worked harder than ever to weather this storm by implementing online ordering, a delivery service, and curbside pickup at farmers’ markets. There was so much support for our business. I felt uplifted during this difficult time by the faith our community had placed in our company. We also partnered with home delivery services like Mother Earth Foods which is now one of our biggest accounts delivering to most of WNC and to SC as well. In fact, this partnership really helped us expand our reach. I also worked really hard to get us into larger health food stores which for us was a big step.

We weren’t sure if we were ready to keep up with the volume and demand but felt like it was a good time to try since most of our other accounts had closed. Our best account now is Earth Fare (it took 15 touches before they agreed) and now our product can be found in more than 10 of their locations. I connected to our local food guild to share my idea for helping to conserve costs by collaborating with deliveries. Basically, a bare-bones distributing service that to this day we are still utilizing with a couple of companies.

I decided that we needed to take this time to highlight our DIY Jun brewing kits as activities for folks to do while stuck at home. We made this available online and began shipping nationwide at the end of March 2020. We even started a free Facebook support group and provided phone and email support as well. This move helped us to stay connected with our community and expand beyond our immediate region significantly.

In an effort to maintain our “hive” mentality while operating virtually, we turned our sales team meetings into an opportunity to connect and started them off with a “rose, bud, thorn” activity which then morphed into a gratitude-sharing practice that we still use today. This often takes up about a quarter of the call but is an important strategy for helping everyone connect, receive support, and celebrate successes. This same activity is utilized in our weekly centering for those members not working remotely. I encouraged hive participation and a team approach to interviews which served as a deeply powerful tool that helped everyone articulate the values of our business and served as a reminder to all of us as to why we are doing this work and why it matters.

At one point, even with the help of the PPP loans, I did not think we were going to make it and the only way to possibly save the company was to raise our prices. Material costs were skyrocketing. The decision to raise prices was extremely challenging for me because we already had an expensive product with poor margins. All of this is because we are supporting local farmers, local small businesses, and a living wage! We ended up raising wholesale prices by 14% and retail by 20% but did this gradually to test the waters. We started with our seasonal flavors and by October 1st had implemented the change across the board. We also encouraged the sales team to promote the flavors that had better margins for us. This proved to be successful and we sold out of all of our seasonals faster than ever before!

I had been wanting to introduce a new line of non-alcoholic champagne for a while to support the sober community and those that want a break from alcohol. Currently, 30% of the adult population are nondrinkers, the time seemed crucial. We launched on December 15th and in 2 weeks sold 250 bottles and found our new line in 22 retail locations. The margins for this product are the best margins we have ever had.

Despite the help with loans, grants, and funding, I am still struggling to meet payroll. I have tapped all of our resources and then we find ourselves in a trademark battle to boot! It’s our community, my employees, and The dream of sharing our health elixirs that keeps me going. I have a dream. I have a vision. Some actions prove to be real setbacks but others make me soar. The interesting thing is that setbacks are always temporary and teach me great lessons about tenacity and resilience.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://shantielixirs.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shantielixirs/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/shantielixirs/
• Youtube: https://youtu.be/o954-Tm3JXk

Image Credits
Erin Adams and Camilla Calnan