NutraWomen Wednesday: Melissa Lemieux, Director of Wellness & Hospitality, Grace Farms Foods

As director of wellness and hospitality, Lemieux’s main role is to educate and raise awareness of the company’s tea and coffee. Grace Farms has over 500 programs that it offers to the community and has about 100,000 visitors that come through every year. 

Grace Farms sits on 80 acres in New Canaan, Connecticut. It sources from women-led co-ops and gives back 100% of profits to fight forced labor worldwide. 

"What we know to be true is 47% of our agricultural supply chain is women-led and less than 10% of those women actually hold management in leadership positions," Lemieux said. "And they are the investment–they invest three times more back into their communities. And so [we’re] really focusing on this mission of connecting and ensuring that we partner with women, that's really our focus."

With a ‘sober curious’ movement underway largely driven by Gen Z, Lemieux added that it’s an interesting time to be working with tea and to be able to engage in conversations in the community about why they enjoy tea.