NutraWomen Wednesday: Joni Hanson Davis, CEO & founder of Beli
Despite a growing fertility market valued in the billions, the Beli founder and CEO says prenatal vitamins haven’t caught up with modern science.
“When I first started looking at the space, I looked at the top 10 selling prenatal vitamins on Amazon and not one met current guidelines. So I was like ‘why?’ It's like there's all this science that says that there's specific nutrients our bodies need to make a little baby. And nobody was doing it and I don't know why, but I think the nutrient market just hasn't caught up in terms of customization,” said Davis. “There's a lot of formulas that haven't been updated in 30 years.”
Davis said her ‘aha moment’ was when she looked at the market and didn’t see any prenatal formulations for men.
“The best way to help women's fertility is to help him. He needs the nutrients to be healthy and his sperm needs to be healthy and that is 50% of the equation that wasn't being addressed. And so, I said this in 2018, I said this in 2019, I'm still saying in 2022: The women bear the burden of getting pregnant and staying pregnant. And the burden of, ‘if I miscarry it’s all my body's fault.’ No, it's a two-way street and the sperm matters just as much as the egg and the mom's health. And so there's a lot that needed to be done and we did it and it's been successful. And it's just our way of contributing to the overall health and the overall ability to conceive.”
