This post originally appeared on the Louisiana Technology Park blog.
It was 2010 and entrepreneur Andrea Leyerle was annoyed that she and several family members were battling a common but unpleasant seasonal illness.
“I am not the type of person who handles sickness well,” she says. “I take it as a personal insult that I let myself get sick.”
Seeking a solution, Leyerle started researching cold and flu remedies and stumbled upon the medicinal properties of elderberries, a common plant that is used around the world to prevent and treat a variety of ailments.
That research led her to try some black elderberry syrup from a store. She was immediately impressed with the results. “I was just really taken aback by how much better I felt and how fast I felt better,” she says. “I was deeply convinced that I never wanted to be without black elderberry syrup.”
Leyerle, who says she was always attracted to a self-reliant lifestyle, decided to start making her own elderberry syrup. Today that experiment has grown into Andi Lynn’s Pure & Custom Formulary, a successful retail and online nutraceutical business that has spread across Louisiana and beyond.