High-End Supplement Brand Movita Organics Moves Into Beauty And Prenatal Offerings

Tonya Lewis Lee, founder and chief creative officer of vitamin brand Movita Organics, isn’t going to sell you on a miracle pill.

“I’m not a quote unquote expert. I’m just like every other woman trying to figure it out,” says the entrepreneur, advocate for minority women, wife of director of director Spike Lee and executive producer of Netflix series “She’s Gotta Have It.” “The truth of the matter is trying to access your best health is really hard. It’s hard for all of us. It’s hard even for people who have the resources to do it to the fullest.”

Although there are no simple solutions, Lewis Lee wants her brand to make being healthy a tad easier for women with gluten-free certified organic vegan supplements that are digestible on an empty stomach. Now, Movita is expanding from the Women’s One a Day Multivitamin that it launched with in 2016 to beauty and prenatal vitamins addressing women’s needs at different life stages and for different concerns.

The brand hopes its enlarged assortment and elegant amber glass bottles designed with Isabel de Peque will appeal to stores. Movita is currently sold in brick-and-mortar retail at C.O. Bigelow, and online on Amazon, BLK + GRN and its own website. Over the last three months, its sales have doubled, and they’re expected to more than double going forward with the introduction of the new products. Subscriptions are a substantial revenue driver for Movita. Movita’s multivitamin, beauty and prenatal offerings are priced at $37.95, $26.50 and $40.95 for a month supply, respectively, but are $24.95, $17.95 and $26.95 per month for subscribers. Refills are housed in paper pouches.

“The truth of the matter is trying to access your best health is really hard. It’s hard for all of us. It’s hard even for people who have the resources to do it to the fullest.”

“We thought coming to market with a general product for baseline nutrition that everyone could take was the best idea for getting started. Once women began to understand who we are as a company and what we are trying to do, beauty and prenatal products made sense, and we are excited about future products,” says Lewis Lee. “We are talking with our scientists about formulations for other products that we will bring out toward the end of the year or early next year.”

Movita vitamins are filled with pure blends of fruits, vegetables and herbs that are fermented using live prebiotics and probiotics to enable them to be absorbed like food. Its advisors include doula Latham Thomas, better known as Glow Maven, and dietician Judy Porter. The brand’s CEO is Robert Sires, a serial investor and previous president of supplement manufacturer Unipharm. Lewis Lee met him five years ago while attempting to secure capital for her former women’s content platform Healthyyounow.com.

Lewis Lee is once again attempting to secure capital, but this time for Movita. Asked by Beauty Independent to relay the pitch she’s giving to investors, she shares, “Movita is a wellness brand. If you are investing in Movita, you are not just investing in the supplements. You are investing in a brand that will grow. I see us scaling not just from the supplements, but I see books. I see podcasts. I see a brand that clearly speaks to all women, but we are also speaking to women of color in a way in which they are not typically spoken to in terms of their health and wellness.” She adds, “I want to be a place where women of color can come and trust that we are listening ot her, and providing the best tools for her. That market has a lot of money, and is hungry for this kind of content and product.”

“I want to be a place where women of color can come and trust that we are listening ot her, and providing the best tools for her. That market has a lot of money, and is hungry for this kind of content and product.”

Lewis Lee’s commitment to spreading the message of health and wellness kicked off a dozen years ago, when she became spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Minority Health’s campaign to foster awareness about infant mortality. She continues that commitment today at Movita, and in her film and television projects. Lewis Lee is helping develop a documentary about maternal health- and birth-related topics.

“We have a real issue with women dying in childbirth in this country. It’s 2019, and that shouldn’t be happening at the rates that it’s happening,” she says. “Black women are certainly dying at higher rates than white women, but, if you look at the statistics, American white women aren’t doing as well as their counterparts in other industrialized nations. I want to talk about the issue that we have on our hands, and I want to remind women of the options out there for them in birthing.”

As Lewis Lee endeavors to improve the health of women, she acknowledges the prices of Movita’s vitamins are prohibitive to some. They are priced closer to premium beauty supplements from the likes of Hum Nutrition, WelleCo and The Beauty Chef at Sephora than Olly Nutrition bottles of gummies at Target. “I don’t apologize for creating a quality supplement that will cost more. At the same time, I am mindful about that,” says Lewis Lee. “We have been talking about how do we come up with a lower price point. That is important.”

Movita is considering a give-back program to broaden its impact, too, and Lewis Lee points out she’s active in policy-making discussions involving health both in her role at the brand and outside of it. She says, “When you think about it, it is really unbelievable how hard it is to really take care of our bodies. There is so much misinformation. It’s really confusing to figure out what we really should eat and how much we should be moving. Breaking through all of that is part of our brand ethos.”