Laura has been with Morinda since the beginning, and has helped develop Tahitian Noni Juice and many other products.
You may not know Laura Robertson, but you definitely know her work. As Morinda's Director of Product Application and Development, she has helped create many different products over the years.
In fact, Laura has been around since the very beginning of Morinda. After switching her college major from art to food science, she graduated with a degree in food science and nutrition.
As it just so happened, several other future influential people at Morinda people happened to be in the same college program with her. One of them was eventual Morinda founder Stephen Story. He hired Laura to be his quality assurance manager at another company. It was around this time that they met Kelly Olsen and Kerry Asay, also eventual Morinda founders.
None of these individuals were familiar with noni at the time, but they soon would be. A neighbor of one of the founders had taken a trip to Tahiti, where he encountered the miracle fruit. Upon returning home, he insisted they seek out the fruit.
So, they did just that. But Laura wasn't a believer at first.
"When I first had my first experience [with noni] I was sick as a dog." she says. One of the founders encouraged her to try some noni. It may have tasted bad, but within an hour, she felt much better and functional. As she said, she was now a convert.
But if Tahitian Noni Juice was going to be successful, they would have to do something about that taste.After hundreds of tries, they finally found the winning formula: grape and blueberry. They didn't know it right away, but they had a runaway hit on their hands.
"We had made product that we figured would keep us moving forward for six months," said Laura regarding the launch of Tahitian Noni Juice. Not only did their stockpile of juice not last six months, it didn't even last six weeks!
Laura then began to discover other ways to use noni. A customer had some irritated skin so Laura suggested she apply the juice topically to the affected area. Even though Tahitian Noni Juice had never been intended to be applied topically, the results were remarkable. Morinda's next product was then the skin supplement, a lotion delivering the topical benefits of noni. That product also lead to additional products, such as the Noni Leaf Serum.
According to Laura, what they were trying to do was "create products that people could actually put on, or drink, and would actually feel an actual benefit that they could consciously say, 'Wow, I feel better.'"
When asked about her experience as an employee of Morinda Laura had this to say; "I have absolutely loved working here. Morinda is trying to give people an opportunity to improve their health, improve their life. You really can't do much better than that. You go home and the end of the day and you know what you've done is try to help people.".