Today I’m visiting the Natural Products Expo West in Anaheim, CA where every natural, organic, and healthy product on the market is showcasing their wares for the weekend.  I’m looking forward to discovering some new products and making my predictions what we are going to see as trends in the natural product industry in 2014 (my predictions for 2013 are here – SPOILER ALERT: I was absolutely on target with all 3 predicted trends).

Today’s Friday’s Featured Female is a throwback to a feature I did on a woman I met at the 2013 Natural Products Expo named Loren Brill of SweetLorens.com.  This young dynamic woman makes an indelible impression (Marie Claire named her a top entrepreneur in 2011) and I’m so thrilled for all of her success.  I’m looking forward to seeing this New Yorker again at this year at the 2014 Natural Products Expo West at Booth #5161.

Sooo, have you met Loren??????

Today I’m featuring, Loren Brill, founder and CEO of SweetLorens.com, one of my favorite discoveries from the Natural Products Expo West 2013.   SweetLorens.com is a New York based company featuring all-natural ready-to-bake cookies and brownies made with 100% whole grains and natural sweeteners.  All Sweet Loren’s products are also dairy and preservative free.

Why is Loren inspirational?  This girl is the definition of moxie!  She became a yoga instructor at age 18 before going to college and became an award-winning entrepreneur (the Next Big Small Brand award in 2011 and 1 of 16 Women On Top by Marie Claire magazine in 2012) – all before the age of 30.  Did I mention that she is also a cancer survivor?  Loren recovered from Hodgkin’s Lymphoma in 2006 but is healthy now.
Loren may have beat cancer but her mother didn’t.  Loren’s mother passed away from Leukemia in 2010.   I know from first hand experience what it’s like to lose a mother (figure, in my case) to cancer at a young age (Wild Boy is named after my stepmother who passed away from cancer when I was 17).  Cancer touches everyone and I’ve written extensively about what the fight against cancer means to me (on World Cancer Day and the Ride For Jon benefit I organized in November 2012). It touches me that Sweet Loren’s donates a portion of all sales to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (which is dear to my heart too – I ran my one and only 26.2 for LLS).

The tagline for Sweet Loren’s is “Be Sweet To Yourself”, something that so many of us forget to do in our busy lives.  Many of us are really good at doing for others and put ourselves last on the list of priorities.  I also happen to love the core values of the company which should be extrapolated to every day life:

Loren not only shares my love of nutrition and health and delicious sweets (like Bold Espresso Chunk cookies and Dark Double Fudge Brownies) but Loren has NY and LA in her blood (raised in NY but went to school in LA and is now back in NYC).  When I met Loren in 2013 as a newbie to LA, it was nice to have someone else understand that dual pull away from and towards NYC.

Dark Double Fudge Brownies

Health and a love for healthy food inspired Loren Brill to start her own business.  Loren’s reasons are similar to why I’m launching my own nutrition private practice this year.  The Friday’s Featured Female series continues to inspire me as I get ready to leap and I hope that it does the same for you.

If you’re interested in learning more about Loren Brill and the products of SweetLoren’s,  you can check out the Sweet Loren’s Facebook page, Twitter, Instagram and/or Pinterest and products are available in select NY tri-state area markets or online.

Disclosure:  I was not influenced or compensated for this post in any manner and the links above do not generate any financial compensation for me or for thevalentineRD.com.  I am just geek who has a crazy memory for inspiring people who love healthy living and food.  All opinions are my own.  Images used with permission.