Heather Florio, CEO of Desert Harvest
In 2012, Heather Florio took over a business started 20 years earlier to help her mother’s sister find relief from interstitial cystitis (IC), a painful bladder condition that affects as many as 12 million people. Aloe vera capsules that her mother and aunt had picked up at an alternative health conference helped alleviate the symptoms, but only if her aunt swallowed nearly the whole bottle.
Undaunted, Florio’s mother hired a chemist to develop a proprietary, super-concentrated aloe vera extract and, with her husband, launched Desert Harvest to sell that product and other aloe vera supplements as a side business to her own resume-writing career.
When Florio took the helm, the company was generating just $1 million in sales. With no business experience except a background in event planning, she began initiating new medical research on the company’s products, strengthening relationships with doctors, adding international distribution, and more. Under her leadership, Desert Harvest has grown annual revenues to $10 million, a 900% jump in nine years.
I had the opportunity to interview Florio recently. Here are some of the highlights of that interview.
Jill Griffin: What’s the focus of Desert Harvest’s business?
Heather Florio: We started nearly 30 years ago as a supplement company selling aloe vera capsules made with a proprietary, super-concentrated aloe vera extract to provide relief from interstitial cystitis, a painful bladder condition that affects as many as 12 million women and men. We now offer a line of nutritional supplements and skin care products—all made with the same aloe vera extract—used to help people with a variety of underserved and under-recognized health conditions. We focus a lot on pelvic health issues, so we’ve recently added pelvic wands and a book that provides a holistic look at treating pelvic issues.
Griffin: What’s the difference between your aloe vera products and others?
Florio: We developed a patented, concentrated aloe vera formulation that is much more potent and effective than typical aloe vera products. The challenge was to make it safe for high dosages and long-term use. Aloe vera naturally contains anthraquinones, a chemical compound that can irritate the colon, cause liver and kidney damage, and lead to colon cancer over the long term. Our formula filters out all of the anthraquinones and insoluble fiber, and also uses a patented drying process to remove all of the moisture. It takes roughly 89 full grown aloe leaves to make one 180-count bottle of our Super-Strength Aloe Vera Capsules.
Griffin: Your parents started the business. How did you get involved?
Florio: My parents started the company in 1993 to help my mother’s sister, who suffered from interstitial cystitis. I had always been involved in Desert Harvest in some way because it was a family business, but my full-time job for 15 years was doing events for the music industry. That work dried up during the last recession, and by that time my mother was ready to retire. I took over in 2012 and poured my heart and soul into it because I had interacted with many of our customers for years and I knew how much our products were helping them. The irony is that I was diagnosed with interstitial cystitis myself in 2016, so for me it became not only a passion project but also a very personal one.
Griffin: You took over in 2012, when Desert Harvest was 19 years old and had annual revenues of $1 million. In the last eight years, you’ve grown it to $10 million. How did you accomplish that?
Florio: Desert Harvest was a side project for my mother because she already had a full-time career. She was a career expert who wrote for publications like Barron’s and the Wall Street Journal and spoke at places like Harvard and Yale about career issues. The company grew largely by word of mouth for the first 19 years because the product spoke for itself. When I took over, I started by applying some basic marketing principles. Over time, I expanded our product line, strengthened relationships with doctors, added international distribution and more. I also initiated medical research that has expanded our understanding of the function of aloe vera in the bladder with several U.S. and international studies. All of these things have fueled our growth and continue to do so.
Griffin: Let’s go back for a minute. Can you explain what interstitial cystitis is?
Florio: Imagine having a urinary tract infection that never goes away. We’re talking about agonizing bladder spasms, excruciating burning, voiding 50-80 times a day, and painful sex. It’s debilitating, and prescription medications usually provide very little relief. Our customers say that our Super-Strength Aloe Vera Capsules are so effective that they give them their life back.
Griffin: What other conditions do your products treat?
Florio: Our Releveum skin repair cream helps people who suffer from radiation dermatitis, the redness, flaking, peeling and pain that can be caused by cancer radiation treatment. We created it to help our chemist’s daughter who was being treated for lymphoma, and it’s now used by radiation oncologists around the world. As an aside, every year during Breast Cancer Awareness month we donate a portion of our Releveum sales to fund nipple reconstruction tattoos for women who have had mastectomies.
Our Aloe Vera Gelé and Aloe Glide are used primarily for skin and feminine care, with approval by the National Eczema Association and pending review by the National Psoriasis Foundation. Our B-Complex product with aloe vera provides the benefits of B vitamins without B6 that irritates the bladder (exacerbating interstitial cystitis symptoms) as well as causing complications for people with a genetic disorder known as an MTHFR gene mutation.
We’ve also entered the CBD space with our patent-pending CBD/aloe vera capsules. A University of Colorado study has shown that our product increases CBD absorption in the bloodstream by 25%, and a pain research study by McGill University examining how pain receptors in the body respond to our CBD-aloe vera combo will be released this year.
Griffin: This year you also became the first U.S. supplement company to abandon single-use pill bottles in your packaging and switch to a rechargeable smart bottle and compostable bags. Tell me about that.
Florio: It’s all about doing our part to combat climate change. First, by the end of 2022, we are going to phase out all of our single-use plastic supplement bottles and transition to plant-based compostable bags that even have plant-based ink. Second, we partnered with an Israeli company to develop a smart pill bottle that can last for five years, sync with an app on your phone to remind you to take your pills, and remind you when to reorder. This will also help if you have an elderly parent or you’re a caregiver of someone who can’t remember if they took their medicine. For every bottle sold, we are going to take one ton of plastic and trash out of the ocean. When the bottle reaches end of life, we will send a postage-paid return label to the customer for recycling. Next, we’re working with a company to try to provide more sustainable packaging for our skin care products.
Griffin: What business lessons do you have for other entrepreneurs?
Florio: Innovate. Create. That’s one of the biggest things for me. I want what I do and what I create at Desert Harvest to make an impact and change people’s lives. For example, we are currently innovating new technologies to better diagnose pelvic floor conditions, developing a collagen pill with one of the highest amino acid profiles on the market, creating a new women's healthcare platform, and designing a study with a New England hospital that will may lead to new therapies for the treatment of Alzheimer's. The lesson is that you can change the world if you have the will, the imagination and the determination to make a difference.
