Wild Mala's Journey
Wild Mala started out as a tiny business making plant based milks. We set out on a mission to offer our community an alternative to mass produced dairy free options that contain harmful fillers, unnecessary additives, and simply aren't REAL FOOD. Our goal was to make alternative milk less of an alternative and more of a valuable staple to provide real nutrition and satisfaction.
We brought to life a REAL FOOD product with protein, healthy fat and loads of antioxidants and minerals. Nuts, dates and water. Ingredients that are grown and not manufactured in a lab. Simple.
From day one we sourced our nuts and dates through direct relationships with small organic farmers. We are proud to say that we never blended a single nut that we didn’t know the origin of. As we added more varieties such as our chocolate almond milk, we spent hours sourcing a complimentary cacao profile through bean to bar producers. Through the process of sourcing ingredients for these milks that were becoming an important part of people's daily routines, the idea for providing a wider assortment of traceable foods was born.
We noticed the disconnect between people and the food they were buying in the grocery store and took on the challenge to bridge the gap. Wild Mala, the brick and mortar was born in a 1930s building in Beaufort SC. At the time we bought the building, we had no idea it was originally built to be a neighborhood market, Harvey's Staple and Fancy Grocery. We lovingly restored it to its original use and took on a piece of it's namesake to honor the history, Wild Mala Staple and Fancy Grocery. In essence, it described exactly what we were becoming.
Through friends, we were lucky enough to meet the daughter of the family who built our shop. She grew up working in the store and even in her 90's was able to recall every detail about what was sold and the customers they served. Back then, groceries were brought in from neighbors and "trustworthy households only." We realized that without knowing it, we were simply trying to restore the connection to food as it was before mass ag took over, before highways were built that would carry food from coast to coast.
Our lineup grew quickly and naturally as we traveled and researched, always in pursuit of a particular product one of our customers was in need of. Customers began to share their struggles with health and food. As we had these conversations and dug deeper, we discovered that many people thought they were making good choices but were still feeling terrible. This provided an opportunity to share all we had learned about the deception going on in food marketing and labeling. We shared our own health struggles and offered the knowledge gained by digging deep into the food world in order to bring balance back into our own lives. We began helping people identify ingredients that could be triggering inflammation or digestive troubles, and offered alternatives that not only helped them feel better, but tasted better.
Our passion for helping people with clean, traceable sources of food took on a life of its own. We realized that our reach in our community, while mighty on the people we were serving, could be more impactful to a wider audience. As with the spirit of Mala, we knew it was time to leave behind our comfort zone and push into a new chapter of the business, one that would challenge and terrify us. We left behind our physical space, allowing us the freedom to spend more of our time traveling, and launched a full time sourcing business to connect other retailers to quality farmers and producers. We also offer a small assortment of items in our online store for our own retail customers.
One of the biggest reasons we hear that makes it challenging for people to make better choices is lack of time. WE HEAR YOU. The amount of time that goes into researching every product we have makes up the majority of the work we do, which is why our collection is small. In a world where there is a plethora of trickery in food, it takes a TON of work to break through the mess and find the GOOD STUFF.
At Wild Mala, we take the research and guess work out. If you find it in our collection, we have done the work. If you need specific questions answered, we will answer them. We are here to help you live better lives in all the ways we know how.
Thank you for trusting us and for supporting all the producers we work with. It truly takes a village.