Teamaker steeped in social responsibility

LONGMONT — You’d think it no longer would be an issue.

This is 2015, after all. It’s now common for women to be governors and senators and mayors, astronauts and military commanders. A woman is a front-runner in the 2016 presidential race.

Besides, this is Boulder County, right? Progressive, socially conscious, egalitarian to a fault.

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And yet …

“There are still challenges” for female entrepreneurs, said Susan Graf, who rose to become president and chief of the Boulder Chamber for eight years and now is vice president for finance and administration at Longmont-based Bhakti Chai. “Typically, women-owned businesses stay smaller. They’re retail, or they’re a service industry. Not many manufacturing plants are owned by women.”

There’s a reason for that, she added.

“There are still challenges accessing capital,” Graf said. “Banks are still pretty traditional. They’ll ask if you have somebody to co-sign. If you were a man, they wouldn’t ask your wife to co-sign.”

Bhakti Chai has defied all those odds.

The tea maker that was started eight years ago by Brook Eddy, a single mother of twins, has posted 40 percent growth in each of the last three years, was the first recipient of a grant from an impact fund for entrepreneurs pushed by Gov. John Hickenlooper, and is using that $3 million to move this summer to a new plant that’s three times as large.

Eddy traveled to northern India in 2002 to study a social-justice movement based on Bhakti, a Sanskrit word that has come to mean “devotion through social action.” While there, she grew fond of the aromatic, flavorful masala chai – but couldn’t find it when she returned to the United States. Eddy began brewing it herself at home in Nederland, and when friends and neighbors became fans of the spicy brew, she decided to build a company on the ideals of Bhakti she had learned in India.

“We want to bring more products to market and continue to innovate,” said Eddy, the company’s chief executive, “but we also want to spread more social action and show that business can be a force for change.”

For Bhakti Chai, that mission has meant becoming a registered B Corporation and making contributions to groups as large as the Global Fund for Women and as small as launching a Kickstarter campaign to help a local woman in danger of losing her home, or funding a scholarship through Realities for Children Boulder County for a young woman to attend the University of Colorado Boulder.

That kind of social responsibility made Bhakti Chai an ideal candidate to be the first recipient of venture capital from the Colorado Impact Fund.

Eddy “has built her business grounded in sustainable practices and charitable giving to causes supporting women, girls and the environment,” said Jim Kelley, founder of the $62.9 million fund. “She’s an entrepreneur that Colorado can be proud of, and we’re excited to be her partner going forward.”

Fueled by the CIF investment, Bhakti Chai is moving from a 4,000-square-foot manufacturing space at 1820 Industrial Circle to 12,000 square feet at 1845 Skyway Drive, just off Colorado Highway 119.

“Fiona’s Granola is out there, and Veggie Go’s,” Graf said. “The whole natural and organic industry is so generous and sharing. Everybody helps one another.” Eddy said the company would likely expand its current workforce of 37 as well.

The grant also is helping the chai tea maker boost its sales and marketing efforts, and expand distribution nationwide.

“We’re opening up San Francisco for food-service delivery,” Graf said. “We want to deliver chai to coffee shops and restaurants and more conventional grocery stores. There’s lots more opportunities in the United States, and we also have international markets that would like to carry us. Canadians are coming down to North Dakota to pick up chai.”

That growth has meant an ever more important role at Bhakti Chai for Graf, who worked for 15 years at Gunbarrel-based greeting card maker Leanin’ Tree. “I was able to come in and tell them what things look like when you get bigger,” she said.

Bringing home the tangy microbrewed tea isn’t the only flavor of India that Bhakti Chai is spreading. In Thailand, the company bought an electric-powered tuk tuk, a type of three-wheeled vehicle that is used as a taxi in India, and in April launched a 10-month cross-country “Tuk Tuk Tour” marketing effort. The first such electric vehicle ever registered in the United States – has been named “Ginger” as a tribute to the ingredient that gives Bhakti Chai its zing.

“India is where I found the inspiration for Bhakti Chai,” Eddy said. “Owning a tuk tuk has always been a dream of mine because it’s such an iconic and vibrant element of the Indian culture.”

According to the Bhakti Chai website, the tuk tuk and its driver, Mark Troutman, have stops scheduled in 20 cities – “It’s our way to connect with our tribe,” Eddy said. And it’s expected in Colorado on Aug. 6.

Dallas Heltzell can be reached at 970-232-3149, 303-630-1962 or dheltzell@bizwestmedia.com. Follow him on Twitter at @DallasHeltzell.