Beyoncé is making more than just lemonade these days.
Queen Bey is also leaving her mark on the beverage world by helping reduce the estimated 800 million pounds of watermelon waste that occur every year in the US.
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Bee has recently invested in WTRMLN WTR, a cold-pressed juice company that has built its business around rescuing ugly watermelons from the landfill. Jody Levy is the co-founder of WTRMLN WTR, and for her, making juice from watermelons is about more than jumping on the bandwagon of maple and coconut water fads.
“Watermelon water is cold-pressed, meaning that we buy the ugly fruit and the produce that can’t sell at retail,” Levy told MUNCHIES. “By using cold press, we can use fresh watermelon rind and flesh, the pink part of the melon, without any preservatives or any added sugar or water. So you get all of the nutritional benefits. WTRMLN WTR is the single-most hydrating beverage on the market; it’s got six times the electrolytes of leading sports drinks, and it’s all-natural.”
WTRMLN WTR co-founder Jody Levy.
Obviously, these hydrating qualities can have a wide range of benefits. “It’s great for a hangover, but it’s amazing pre- and post-workout. One of the nutrients in it is called l-citrulline, which is a vasodilator which helps with muscle fatigue. There are so many benefits, a lot of pro and everyday athletes swear by it and love it.”
This athletic bent, combined with Levy’s leadership and environmental concern, made WTRMLN WTR a very attractive business opportunity for Beyoncé. “I invested in WTRMLN WTR because it’s the future of clean, natural hydration; as partners, we share a simple mission to deliver accessible wellness to the world”, Bee said in a press release. “This is more than an investment in a brand, it’s an investment in female leaders, fitness, American farmers, and the health of people and our planet.”
For Levy, bringing Beyoncé on board as an investor was a no-brainer. “Our company is backed by a mission to empower people to make healthy choices in their lives,” Levy told MUNCHIES. “Our alignment with Beyoncé really comes from that focus on empowerment and performance. Beyoncé is an athlete on stage. But her passion for entrepreneurship and creativity allow us to be aligned in all of the places.”
But that wasn’t the only alignment with Beyoncé—there appears to have been a cosmic alignment which allowed Jody and Bey to connect in the first place. Anyone familiar with the track “Drunk in Love” will know that Beyoncé professed her love for melons far before this project. (“I’ve been drinking watermelon / I want your body right here, daddy / I want you, right now.“)
“It’s so wild. Our product launched on December 13, 2013, the day that ‘Drunk in Love’ launched,” Levy recounts. “That’s how this whole relationship started. I reached out to her team and started sending her our product because I thought she would enjoy it and it was this amazing situation where the universe just conspired. Our brand was a secret until the day we launched and her song dropped within hours. We like to believe that that’s what brought us all together.”
