Episode 099: Probiotic Foods, Gut Health and Mission-Based Work with Barb Vogel and Nikki Price of inner-ēco
In this episode, I’m joined by Barb Vogel and Nikki Price, co-founders of inner-ēco, a mission-based company that makes food-based probiotics.
You’ll hear them:
Share their story of how the company came to be
Why they believe in bringing real food with clean ingredients to families of all sizes (pets included!)
The benefits of food-based probiotics
How they’re a mission-based company committed to helping free enslaved people around the world.
How they maintain their health and other life responsibilities as successful businesswomen
LISTEN TO THE EPISODE:
CONNECT WITH inner-ēco:
SHARE THE EPISODE:
Read the Episode Transcript...
Naomi Nakamura: Hello and welcome back to the Live FAB Life Podcast. I am your host Naomi Nakamura and I am so excited to be with you here today for the 99th episode of the show, which means the next one is going to be a pretty big milestone.
But before we get there, I'm super excited to share this episode with you. Now, long-time listeners will know that one of the main topics of this show is gut health because I firmly believe that healthy digestion and gut health is the foundation for all health. And that is why probiotics are so important in maintaining a healthy gut.
Now I don't know about you but I have gone through periods in my health journey where I just felt like I was taking so many pills and these aren't medications, these are supplements. And it just felt really overwhelming having to figure out the timing of everything. And if I took too many on an empty stomach, I'd feel sick and it just added to my stress load, which is why I am such a proponent of partaking in food sources of these supplements whenever possible. And that's exactly what today's guests provide.
So in this episode I am joined by Barb Vogel and Niki Price, who are the co-founders of a company called inner-ēco. And if you've never heard of inner-ēco, which by the way I am a customer of and I get into that in this episode, I've been drinking them for a few years.
But inner-ēco is a mission-based company, which you all know I'm all about mission-based businesses, but they make food-based probiotics.
Now Barb and Niki actually started out as former school teachers. And they started inner-ēco way back in 2008, over 10 years ago, and this is way back before probiotics and gut health were even popular topics of discussion.
So in this episode you're going to hear a lot of things. You're going to hear them share their story of how the company came to be and how they believe in bringing real food with clean ingredients to families and pets of all sizes. And what their ultimate mission is, and that is to be a champion of providing healthy, happy environments that start from the inside out. You'll also hear all about their mission-based business and how they're committed to helping free enslaved people all around the world. I thought that was so interesting to hear. You'll hear why food-based probiotics trump probiotic pills, and how it can help things like your dental health and many, many other benefits that it offers.
Now as women running a very successful nationwide business, I couldn't help it. I had to ask them how they managed to do that while still keeping up with their own health and all their other life responsibilities. So you're going to hear them share their thoughts on that as well.
So I so enjoyed speaking with these ladies and hearing their stories, and I certainly hope you do too. So with that, let's get to the show.
Barb Vogel: Really, the story behind this brand goes back to, I was a teacher for 30 years, and Niki and I met when Niki was my student teacher. And we just became very dear lifelong friends. She always honors me by saying I'm her second mom. And so we've known each other longer than she's known her husband or-
Niki Price: Yeah, about 30 years.
Barb Vogel: ... About 30 years. Oh my gosh.
Niki Price: Mm-hmm (affirmative), a long time.
Barb Vogel: Shoot are we that much older?
Niki Price: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Barb Vogel: Sorry. Anyway, Niki stayed home to raise her children. And I was over visiting her and she had a little guy that she was watching. While she's raising her young kids, she did some daycare. And one of the little guys, Cameron was six months old and he was diagnosed with autism. And the mom did just all kinds of research, took him to a world specialist and they said, "You know, we really need to address the gut health." Because autistic kids apparently have, which I've heard many times over, have gut issues. And she helped her get to coconut keifer and how to make it herself. So she was making it and giving to this baby. And Niki saw such a drastic difference in the baby.
So Niki started drinking little sip of it, and then she started making it, and started giving it to neighbors and so on. And I came over to visit her and she said, "Listen, I want you to try this." And I said, "No, it's coconut." So I don't touch coconut. Now, I'm one of the largest importers of young green coconuts probably in the country. But I said, "No, I don't think so." And quote unquote, I ate a salad raw and I was born with gut issues. Just let me say that. I couldn't have any kind of milk and they raised me and goat's milk and even that was difficult for me. I'd been in and out of the hospital with gut things. Nobody to this day, both my children are surgeons, nobody ever knew what it was.
Naomi Nakamura: So when was this all happening?
Barb Vogel: This was happening 11 years ago.
Niki Price: Well, the company started 11 years ago. The work that we did in our kitchen was 15 years.
Naomi Nakamura: I was going to say, because people who are talking about gut health and probiotics and all of these things way back then.
Barb Vogel: No they weren't. We were truly, no kidding. Naomi, we were going around the country educating people on the words probiotic. Nobody even knew what that meant. Much less putting coconut together with probiotics. Because coconut hadn't yet hit, the the big state.
Niki Price: It was Jamie Lee Curtis. And those DanActive commercials. That's when people started talking about probiotics and that's when we were first out there. So we're thankful for those commercials.
Naomi Nakamura: I was going to say that they're on commercials all the the time now.
Niki Price: All the time. Everybody.
Barb Vogel: We had a little salad, my stomach did the grumblies, the gas, the whole thing [inaudible 00:06:05] I can't digest anything. And Niki said, "Barb, just try it." So I scrunched up my nose and I took a little sip out of a spoon. And Naomi, I promise I'm not even exaggerating, that altered my life. My body, it was like water on a desert. I promise you that my body instantly, I've never had anything like that, instantly recognized this.
It must've had none of it because the second that that hit my body, I felt it. And from that day forward, I have not truly had an issue. And I thought, "If this can do this for Barb Vogel, what can this do for others?" Now, Niki and I had, we were very involved with an anti-slavery work in the classroom. And February 9th, 1998, I read my students an article about slavery in Sudan. And I had just taught them, the Friday before I read this article I had taught, I'd entered a unit of slavery and said to them as I sent them home, "Isn't it great that we don't have that particular horror, chattel slavery, owning people as property to worry about anymore?"
And wouldn't you know, that weekend my husband kind of divided the newspaper. I put down his breakfast and he put down a paper and there was this beautiful photograph of this really happy girl and I do photography. So I thought, "Oh, that's such a beautiful photograph." I thought being a naive American that it was going to tell me she was going to run the Olympics or something. And then down below and it said, "Slavery thrives in Sudan." And I've got to tell you something. I think I was always a born abolitionist. I know I'm an abolitionist. It's why I started doing this work in this company with Niki. I've always had an interest and a question about how humanity could do that to somebody. How you take one of God's, one of the creator's creations and think you can own it, right?
A soul. That's a soul. I don't get that. And so we started a campaign, a writing campaign and the kids called it STOP, which was an acronym for Slavery That Oppresses People. And it went worldwide. It went to 16 countries. 50 States. Went to Congress. Went to the Pope. We eventually stopped slavery. 10 year olds were talking. It was very historic. We got our government to act and write the Sudan Peace Act. Books were written about. Screenplays. So it still continues my work today.
And so when Niki and I started making this, a neighbor, Niki was selling it to neighbors and so on and so forth. And I said, "You know, Niki, if that can do that for me then what can I do for others?" And I thought, "Niki was at home with the children, her husband's a teacher." And I thought, "You know what, if we went into business then Niki and her husband could have this income." I did it really, because I was retired at that point. Right. It could help them and I would use this couple thousand dollars I got a month to free people from slavery. And that's how we started. And that's how we got into business. And then it just grew from there.
Naomi Nakamura: I didn't know that. And I do have to tell you, I was about three or four years ago, my own gut health was not very good at all. It's been up and down over the past several years, but I was taking inner-ēco and it really helped me.
Niki Price: Yay.
Naomi Nakamura: All the way back then. All the way back then.
Niki Price: Oh that's awesome. Yay.
Barb Vogel: Naomi, just the other day we got another call about people who say to us, "I have been on every medication that there is and none of them are working. And not until somebody told me." And that's what's so awesome about you going to help us get this word out. "Not until I tried inner-ēco did it work." And we eve had a guy call young guy in his twenties that said, "You saved my life." And I said, "Oh thanks. I mean that's why we're doing this." And he said, "No, I'm really serious." He said, "You saved my life. I'm in my twenties. I can't even leave my apartment because I'm scared I'll have an accident. I can't date." He said, "Then somebody told me, I've tried everything and the doctors, everything." And he said, "Somebody at the store recommended this." And he said, "I had the plans all day to kill myself. I was going to commit suicide."
Niki Price: Contemplated suicide.
Barb Vogel: And he said, "When I say you saved my life." He said, "you did. He said, "Because of your product I can now have a normal life." And there's so many different, so many a stories like that. And I think that we are different, Naomi. We are very therapeutic living food. This starts in your mouth. Our new VP of sales went to get his teeth cleaned after being on it for just three months. And they said to him, and my own dentists said the same thing, "What are you doing?" And they I said, "Did I ruin my teeth for something?" He goes, "You have gums of an 18 year old." And they told him the same thing. The oral health of benefits of this is unbelievable.
Niki Price: So most of the educational, because most people traditionally think probiotic pills. I need to do a pill, which apparently it needs to be in the terra-coated form to survive the stomach acid. So it doesn't work. So it gets to the gut. But remember inner-ēco is not a supplement, we're a food. The first probiotics were food, they weren't pills.
Naomi Nakamura: So for people who aren't familiar with what inner-ēco is, can you explain exactly what it is?
Niki Price: Sure. It's a fermented living food. Way back in the day, over a thousand years ago, we didn't have, we didn't pasteurize our foods, but we did as we fermented them. And those kept them from souring and going bad. And that's traditionally where the word "keefer" or "kaffir" came from. But they would take this kafir and put it in their milk pouches, and they'd go on these long trips and they found that this milk kafir, the milk didn't sour and they notice these health properties and these people would live into their disease free.
And that has all been well documented. It goes back to biblical times. So we say we just took two things in nature, traditional kefir, keefer, and put it with raw fresh coconut water. And what happened really is, I think it's a magical thing because there's something about raw coconut water, they used intravenously in world war II as a saline replacement. Fresh coconut water has the same composition as human blood plasma. So when you take these living cultures and you add it into a living medium or a prebiotic, right? The sugar and the coconut water is a prebiotic. Then you add the probiotic, it becomes this living food. And that's the whole purpose of a probiotic is to be alive. Right?
Naomi Nakamura: Well it is so important that it has the prebiotic and the probiotic.
Barb Vogel: See that's what's important and that's why I think it's so effective is that it's living in it's own environment in this bottle. It is the purest environment that any probiotic could live in. And it's so happy. So it's making it all the way through your system because it's surrounded by this pure young green coconut water that we crack the coconuts on site. When we started, I tell you what, I was really good with my machete because that's how I used to crack them all.
Naomi Nakamura: I was actually born and raised in Hawaii on a small island. That is actually how my grandparents, my grandfather used to do it.
Niki Price: Oh gosh. When you think about the net amount of probiotic that we have, which we average 100 billion per tablespoon. 30 serving bottles for $20 or less.
Barb Vogel: For a month's supply, there is no better value of any probiotic on the market. It's like 60 cents a day. And there isn't anything with that count. It's nothing near that.
Niki Price: And then people say, "Well, I love my kombucha and I love to drink the whole bottle." Well, all you do is throw your shot of inner-ēco inside your can of seltzer and you make a probiotic drink for 50 60 cents.
Barb Vogel: With no sugar.
Niki Price: With no sugar. Yeah.
Naomi Nakamura: So where do you source your coconut from?
Barb Vogel: Thailand
Naomi Nakamura: Okay.
Niki Price: There's thousands of different types of coconuts. And we have a very specific, the brick counts, sugar content has to be. We've tried every coconut really in the world, Mexico. I mean just you name it. But it's a very fertile valley. The conditions are just right, and the sugar content is just right. It's all natural. So they all come from Thailand and they have to be certified. They're certified six months or younger.
Naomi Nakamura: Okay, great. You do a lot of educational work. Can you speak to that?
Barb Vogel: Yeah, that's Niki's full time job traveling around the nation.
Niki Price: It's so important because probiotics, 15 years ago, no one even knew what they were. And now people know what they are, but they're very confused because there's so many options. I think as all things, we make things a lot more complicated than they really need to be. My philosophy is to stick with food first. Right? It's more fun. First of all, food is more fun than swallowing pills. We tell people, use a shot glass, you drink inner-ēco by the shot.
Naomi Nakamura: That's exactly how I took it just because at the time there was a lot of things going on with my gut health, and I was so tired of taking all of these pills, which they weren't medication. There were supplements, but there were still pills. And so I was looking for something that was more fluid based.
Niki Price: Sure.
Barb Vogel: When you switched over to inner-ēco versus to pill, did you find it more effective for you?
Naomi Nakamura: Yes. Because mentally I was just so depleted at that point because trying to deal with all of these things and then having to take all these pills and then having to time all these things as well. I mean I'm still on different supplements right now where it's like, "Either take this 15 minutes before you eat or one hour after you eat." And then sometimes you just forget, and you ended up not taking it all because all these things have different timings, and it's just adds more to the stressors.
Barb Vogel: Sure.
Niki Price: And remember the pocketbook. Supplements get very expensive. And I have to tell you, as a mom, 15 years ago, my kids were young. I was really exhausted and overwhelmed with all the options. When you think about powders, pills, gummies, juice, probiotics, yogurt. I thought, "You know what?" I put the shot glasses out, and I just started pouring the shots, and I thought, "Everybody can do the same probiotic." So as a mom, it just made it so much easier for me to afford it and for everyone to do the same probiotic and then you teach your kids about food, how important it is to get our nutrients through food and yeah, pets too.
Naomi Nakamura: It's hard to get kids to take pills too.
Barb Vogel: Oh yeah, exactly. Exactly.
Niki Price: Yeah, because we have people that give [inaudible 00:16:36] from infants on up.
Naomi Nakamura: So getting back to the education part of it. So you travel around the country, and you do seminars or what does that look like?
Niki Price: I do a little bit of everything. I traveled nationally for over 10 years, and I'm a very hands on co-founder where I work specifically with the retailer and the people that work in the department and the supplement whole body in the stores. I talked to everybody. And I do trainings, and I do sampling. Because it's a very much a consumer trial product. Once people try it, they love it, they buy it. And I've always said it, an inner-ēco customer is a customer for life because it's effective. You can afford it forever. It just works.
Barb Vogel: We have an extremely loyal base of people. We need to expand that. We need to get people-
Niki Price: More people. I think people like to jump around a little bit and experiment and try new things, which absolutely. Sometimes it's easy to travel with the pill, but I always tell people when you are local, do inner-ēco, because it's going to be so much of a better bang for your back.
You're going to work on the oral benefits. The original, you can put in a spray bottle and you can use it as a topical natural hand spray, deodorant, or facial toner. And now-
Naomi Nakamura: I never thought about that.
Niki Price: Yes, yes. See most training on supplements and probiotics is that it needs to be in a terra coated form to survive the stomach acid, but in fact you're more bacterial than you are human. So why not wear your probiotic? So just spray it on with those little glass spray bottles. Don't dilute it. 100% just the original. Toner spray it in the air to disinfect. As you're breathing it in while you're spraying your skin, you're actually inhaling that good bacteria and that's going right into your brain. And now you know there's research behind the benefits of brain health and gut health. It's all connected. So yeah, probiotics can help you look better, feel better. It's just amazing.
Barb Vogel: Well, we have several strains in there. We offer several strains in our probiotic coconut water. And we are just launching, this is going to hopefully, they took it globally, we have our probiotic coconut water and we're launching a new product called pro, which is made with, Oh, let me tell you, no kidding it is so good. It is made with organic coconut cream and it's called pro and it's got a whole different set of probiotics in it. And it's gender specific. We have kids. We have women's. With adaptogens, women. Women's has ashwagandha. Men's has maca.
Niki Price: It's like a milkshake. But low sugar and still wonderful price points.
Naomi Nakamura: Do they come in different flavors?
Barb Vogel: Yes. I think whole foods has vanilla, lavender. They have men's line, women's line. I think they're taking kids Berry. They have several flavors. Yeah. And some of the other stores will have different flavors too. When we gave Whole Foods a couple of exclusives.
Niki Price: And it's a shot. It's shot type packaging.
Barb Vogel: It just a one district-
Niki Price: Single Serve.
Barb Vogel: You're going to get hooked when you try it.
Naomi Nakamura: So I get mine from Whole Foods. Where else can people can find it?
Niki Price: We're national, so you can go onto the website, inner-ēco.com with all the locations are there. We very rarely we get people that say please ship it because they have a store within five miles from their house where they can typically find it. It's too difficult to ship because the nature of the activity, the glass, how you open it, you have to open this, much more fizzy than even a kombucha. It's literally just a crack and close method.
But Whole Foods, Sprouts, Wegmans, Fresh Time, all the small natural food chains and some conventional accounts too.
Naomi Nakamura: And for listeners, if you don't know where to look for it in Whole Foods, it's in the refrigerated section because it's a product that needs to be refrigerated because it has live organisms in it, live culture in it.
Niki Price: Exactly. And in the supplement cooler, not in a grocery where the milk is. Where the supplements are.
Naomi Nakamura: Yes. Now switching gears for a little bit, a large portion of my audience are working women, people who have full time jobs and I'm always curious and I always ask my guests as professional women, as women who are running this business, how do you manage it all? How do you manage to keep up your health with your other life responsibilities as well as being a woman in business?
Barb Vogel: Well, both of us were teachers and had families and I did that for 30 years and then ran an international campaign. So there was times when I was teaching, that I was working a hundred plus hours and that really got me ready to run a business because it is a demanding as you know. I mean it's being a woman and having the responsibilities that a lot of women have. Not that men don't. They have to know their responsibilities too. But-
Niki Price: It's different.
Barb Vogel: .. it is very different. And one thing I would say about that is I was raised by a really strong independent single mom. And so I never thought there was anything that you just couldn't do or I never had any discrimination or never felt there was anything I couldn't do versus a man or whatever.
And then when I went into business, Naomi, there was a few incidences where people thought, "Oh, little old retired school teacher and let's just walk on her and not have a lot of respect." I was like, "Well, you know what? That went over like a [inaudible 00:21:53] balloon." Because I was like, "What? No. [inaudible 00:21:57]" I was grateful for that, to be honest with you, because then I understood these movements that the women have joined. I understood. I mean, I've got a taste of it, I get a taste of it, but it really gave me a much deeper understanding of what women go through. My daughter's a surgeon, and she talks about getting her way through some of that. Right? And I will say it did not get in my way really at all. But it gave me an appreciation for more that we need women in these positions. And did it ever give me an edge?
I don't think being a woman ever gave me an edge or really was a deficit really as far as growing my business. I don't think it did one way or the other there. How do you feel about that?
Niki Price: To answer your question, I go back to, I don't know, two words come to mind. Love and purpose. And when you have purpose in what you're doing and you know that you are making a difference, it fuels your power, your energy. Women supporting other women is very important to me. This product, it's sole purpose for being here is to serve others. And that's why we do the work in the world. And this product goes far beyond just the contents of the bottle, but it's a company that has a soul.
And when you do things for a higher purpose and for something that you feel have value and that you're not just going through the motions, it really allows you to sacrifice sometimes some of the moments that you've might have with your kids. It forces you to have balance. And there have definitely been years where I've had more balance than others. But when you also see your kids benefit from the product, oh my gosh, today, honestly my children have had the tremendous opportunities in college, but it's been literally a 15 years of building their immune system. And I'm telling you, compounded over 10 when you see your kids not hardly ever get sick, it alters their education experience. So it's just such a big deal.
Barb Vogel: My kids were all on this about my grandchildren are just [inaudible 00:23:57]. Absolutely, I agreed with that. And I think Niki brought forth the absolute foundation of inner-ēco is mission. We were a mission. As I told you earlier, we started. We were a mission first and then a company and we will always be that. And I have to tell you, owning a business that's growing like this and being successful, which we never thought. We thought we'd stay a little cottage industry. But our products are so effective and so good and it's grown and we're happy, we're happy. And Niki is so right. When it gets tough and I'll tell you, it can take you away from other things in your life.
But, Naomi, Niki and I are here to serve. Plain. Period. End are subject. If I will not give it to my children, my grandchildren, I will not give it to you. I bring forth only healing one product at a time and I'm here to serve and Niki is here to serve. So it makes a lot of the other stuff when it gets tough, we just think you're just doing a job. And nobody said it was easy.
Naomi Nakamura: I mean everything you said absolutely aligns with what the work that I do and the beliefs that I had because I think, first of all gut health is the foundation of all health and if you don't have good gut health, all of these other things, conditions and health struggles that people have. I think if they take care of their gut health a lot of problems can be alleviated that way. But also when it comes down to being a mission based company and being professional women, trying to find balance in the world. I think when it is mission based it gives you a different sense of purpose and when you're doing something that you love, it doesn't feel like work and it is work. But the passion and the drive there is just, it's a different kind of drive that I think are women who maybe aren't there yet is I think something everyone should experience.
Barb Vogel: I agree with you on that. And I think that you can experience it. You don't have to own a business. You don't have to have a great big mission like we do. We don't only just do that. We just fix 250 face deformities for children, 333 eye operations in rural India for people who could see. Veteran's therapy dog. I could go on and on about our giving. The purpose of inner-ēco is to give. We give every cent that we can and Niki knows, and the whole company knows. The minute that it's more business and it's not giving-
Niki Price: What's the purpose?
Barb Vogel: There's no purpose for me. I remember a really difficult thing a few years ago I was coming out of a meeting and it was just difficult. It was just corporate difficult stuff. And I got back in my car and there was actually nobody there and I felt this way, but I got out and I was really shaking and I was upset and because they weren't good people. Just wasn't good people doing good things. And I got in my car, close the door when I said, looked up at the heavens and I said, "You know what? I am not going through hell for the hell of it." That's my [inaudible 00:26:57] by the way. And I said, "Either we stick to this mission and this mission is first, or I'm not doing this anymore." I mean, I'm so serious about that.
And people who support inner-ēco are supporting women that are bringing that forward, they're the ones that are freeing these people. They are the ones that are fixing me eyes and the faces and the hearts of veterans. It's not me.
Niki Price: We're the vehicle.
Barb Vogel: It's them. We're just a vehicle for it. We're the tool for it. They're the ones that are doing that and I'm so grateful for every single purchase of inner-ēco.
Niki Price: The collective group customers, the more we make, the more we get to give.
Naomi Nakamura: I love it. Well, thank you so much for joining me here. I really enjoyed our conversation. Like I said, I'm a customer myself. It's really helped me in my own health. It is not fun having your digestion just out of whack. And so thank you for the work that you do.
Niki Price: You're welcome. It's our greatest compliment.
Barb Vogel: It's so wonderful. You take your time with us and you share this with all your loyal listeners and makes us so very happy that we can help you in your health.
Naomi Nakamura is a Functional Nutrition Health Coach. She helps passionate, ambitious high-achievers who are being dragged down by fatigue, burnout, sugar cravings, poor sleep, unexplained weight issues, and hormonal challenges optimize health, find balance, and upgrade their energy so they can do big things in this world.
Through her weekly show, The Live FAB Live Podcast, programs, coaching, and services, she teaches women how to optimize their diet, support their gut health, reduce their toxic load, and improve their productivity, bringing work + wellness together.
Naomi resides in the San Francisco Bay Area and can often be found exploring the area with her puppy girl, Coco Pop!
Connect with Naomi on: Facebook | Twitter | Instagram
| Pinterest
