By Edward Pevos
mlive.com
WWR Article Summary (tl;dr) Entrepreneur Nailah Ellis has a new high profile business partner, comedian Kevin Hart. Hart’s investment in Ellis’s “Ellis Island Tea” was a dream come true for the business owner who founded her company based on an old family recipe.
Detroit
Talk about a sweet deal! Actor and comedian Kevin Hart has just partnered with Michigan sweet tea company, Ellis Island Tea, brewed in the Motor City by Nailah Ellis, who describes herself as the largest Black female beverage manufacturer in the United States.
Ellis founded her company in 2008. The tea is based on a family recipe created by her great-grandfather, Cyril Byron, a Jamaican immigrant and chef who came to America through Ellis Island more than 100 years ago.
Ellis says when Byron passed his recipe down, his instructions were that it was to be “sold, not told.”
“Before he died, he passed the recipe along to his family. The recipe had never been written down before me,” Ellis told MLive. “In our family, the tea was made for every big family gathering and holidays. Our family is full of chefs and the tea was always the talk of the dinners.”
Ellis said she not only hoped the tea recipe would be her ticket to becoming an entrepreneur, but at the same time would carry on her great-grandfather’s legacy.
“Cyril’s story is one of a true risk taker. He came here with nothing but his dreams,” Ellis said. “He went on to become a head chef on Marcus Garvey’s Black Star Line and then the owner of Byron Caterers, one of the most successful Black-owned catering businesses in the Bronx.”
KEVIN HART’S INVESTMENT
Ellis says her investment with Hart came about in an unconventional way through four degrees of separation.
“I really wanted to pitch to Hart for an investment. His bodyguard happens to be from Detroit. So, a friend of a friend is really good friend’s with Hart’s bodyguard. I called him up and asked him if he could do anything and he mentioned my company in passing to Hart and a meeting was set up. It happened so fast and yet it happened so slow.”
“I like the healthy component to it,”Hart told Nailah in a live Instagram conversation promoting the tea. “I think a lot of us are dying and suffering from the same things over and over again. It starts with taking care of yourself. So, when you’re providing the things that we like and you’re putting some health benefits in it, I think that’s an amazing recipe for success. I’m already in. I’m team you. I’m going to be team you.”
Ellis says she still can’t believe she was not only able to meet with Hart, but land an investment with him.
“You’d be surprised what can actually happen if you just put it out here. I felt crazy every time I said I wanted to get in front of Hart. Like, yeah right. I felt awkward for dreaming that large. But when I sat down in front of him he was just in love with the story and he said he wanted to see me win.
Before he cut the check he said you’re a dreamer, I’m a dreamer and I love dreamers. The rest is history. I’m still in a state of shock.”
This investment couldn’t have come at a better time for Ellis as she is now rolling out her tea in southern Walmart stores this month, with Target and CVS stores in the near future. Hart’s investment has paved the way for Ellis Island Tea to create new packaging, lower prices to better compete and to add new e-commerce options. Ellis says all of this should create rapid growth.
“We were able to purchase new equipment which makes us more efficient. We got out of glass and now we’re running in plastic. Shipping was crazy. We were selling online for $60 a case with glass. Now we’re able to ship anywhere in the country for less than $30. We’ve increased our online sales over 1,000 percent. Hart is also going to be activity involved on the marketing side to increase our product awareness.”
WHERE TO FIND ELLIS ISLAND TEA
Along with being sold online here and soon to be at Walmart stores in the southern region of the U.S., you can find the tea at select Sam’s Club locations and Costco stores along with various airport concessions across the country.
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Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
