Guayakí Yerba Mate Rebrands As Yerba Madre, Pushing Towards A Stronger Regenerative Future In The Rainforest

Forbes

01-05-2025

New Yerba Madre loose leaf yerba mate
As Guayakí, the dominant brand in the American yerba mate market, approaches its 30th anniversary, it's honoring the start of a new chapter by changing its name to Yerba Madre.
The refreshed name better reflects Yerba Madre's gratitude for the herbal plant native to South America, yerba mate (mah-teh), which has the capacity to both rejuvenate the body and regenerate the earth. The company is also boosting its commitment as a Regenerative Organic Certified company that enhances the livelihoods of farmers and indigenous communities in the Atlantic Rainforest.
In 1995, Alex Pryor moved to California from Buenos Aires where he, like many other Argentinians, grew up on yerba mate, traditionally consumed in a gourd. Pryor would later meet David Karr, foundeding Guayakí Sustainable Rainforest Products by selling loose leaf yerba mate in a market that could barely even pronounce the word. Throughout the next several years, they would bring on Michael 'Don Miguel' Newton, Chris Mann, Steven Karr and Richard Bruehl, all of whom are known by the company as its 'semillas,' or seeds, eventually establishing a commercialized format for drinking the potent yerba mate–in its tall yellow cans.
As they each grasp a hand on a yerba mate plant while reuniting at Cereví regenerative education hub in Misiones Province, Argentina (created by the Fundación Agroecológica Iguazú, of which Pryor serves as Director) for the first time in April as one unit in more than 20 years, Pryor says about the tree, 'this is our mother that brought us all together.'
Those seeds have now matured–their branches growing new seeds. Yerba Madre begins its path into the future with a new CEO, Ben Mand, who previously flipped Harmless Harvest from a stifling business into the market-defining Regenerative Organic Certified coconut beverage brand.
With a name that's simply easier to pronounce, word of mouth will make the product easier to share; it's something at the core of yerba mate–a beverage that you don't just sip, but share. Sourcing its yerba mate leaves from a single indigenous tribe since its founding, Yerba Madre now works with hundreds of communities across three countries; the new name is also a more inclusive one. Pryor says, 'these are the farmers who are bringing the forest back.'
Newton, Pryor, S. Karr, Mann, Bruehl and D. Karr with the female yerba mate plant
Pryor grew up with parents who were agronomists, studying soil and crop production. He moved to San Luis Obispo on California's Central Coast to study food science at Cal Poly after feeling a deep sense of loss at home due to the immense deforestation happening around him. 'With this grief and pain…the yerba mate was always present,' Pryor tells me. People in California relentlessly asked him about the mystical herbal drink he kept sipping on through the artisanal gourd day in and day out. 'Answering those questions helped me strengthen my identity.'
Pryor in the 90's with Guayakí yerba mate
While working at a restaurant, he met David Karr, who was starting a tech business–becoming fast friends. Karr suffered from hay fever, and when Pryor passed him his very first gourd, he felt its medicinal effects immediately. 'I could breathe better,' Karr says. 'I was so drawn to this plant–the story of how it could be leveraged as a positive force for social and environmental restoration and regeneration.' This venture felt more authentic to him than his previous business. 'Nature was my religion.'
Without much strategy, the two partnered up to create a business that would help regenerate the Atlantic Rainforest through selling yerba mate in a new market. 'People didn't know what it was, so this idea to protect the last remnants of the forest, help the people and make that a business was unheard of,' Pryor says. 'The first one to really believe in this was David.'
Even though it was such a big part of his life, Pryor had never seen yerba mate growing in its natural habitat. 'There is this link between the consumer and where the plant comes from that's missing,' Pryor says. At natural food stores on California's Central Coast, the pair began to sell loose leaf yerba mate sourced from Paraguay's Indigenous Aché Kue Tuvy tribe, historically referred to as Aché Guayakí. 'The name was born from representing the people that work with the yerba mate,' Pryor says. As opposed to the more conventional sun-grown, this community grows shade-grown mate. When they learned why this method was radically more beneficial, they knew meaningful impact was on the horizon.
Shade-grown yerba mate at Surucua Farm
Yerba mate is more than a hot beverage or herbal infusion. 'Yerba mate as a plant is the backbone of history for indigenous communities,' Mand says. It is a different plant than tea, although sometimes described as a green tea for the sake of explanation. Mate is a Quechua word meaning 'container.' Many South Americans carry a gourd, traditionally made of squash and bound in leather, in one hand, and a thermos of water in the other, pouring portions throughout the day, sipping through the metal bombilla straw. In other scenarios, friends and family will unite with one another in a gourd circle, led by a 'cebador,' who pours a serving of water to share the vivacious mate.
Yerba mate is an endless vessel; a medium that bridges medicine, energy, inspiration, friendship and connection among one another.
In the rainforest, much deforestation occurs to clear land to grow crops in a conventional monoculture system, which severely lacks any biodiversity. 'There's no need to cut the forest down,' Pryor says. 'The plant is telling us that it wants to grow back in the forest…that's what we're doing with the yerba mate.' Our rainforests are naturally regenerative ecosystems; regenerative agriculture mimics that natural state.
Seeds of a female yerba mate tree
One aspect of the mate's magic is that it thrives in shade. 'That's where mate wants to be,' Bruehl says. 'It's its native zone…superior in nutrition and vitality.' Conventional yerba mate farms will use pesticides and grow yerba mate in the sun. Traditionally, that's preferred simply because it produces a greater yield, thus profits. Most mate plants on these farms are males, because they produce larger leaves than females, but the females produce seeds, and in turn, biodiversity. '[The seeds] become the regenerative agents for bringing back the forest…the mother herb [La Yerba Madre] of the rainforest,' Pryor says. Biodiversity also helps protect against disease, drought intolerance and promotes better soil health. '[All of the organisms] are part of the overall ecosystem that creates that balance,' Mand explains.
Shade-grown yerba mate farms are intercropped with other trees native to the region. Some are planted, while other pioneer plants naturally grow due to wildlife spreading seeds around the Atlantic Rainforest's iron-rich red soil, another crucial factor for thriving yerba mate plants. This is how the rainforest gets rebuilt. More types of trees equals more birds. More birds equals more trees. It's cyclical; regenerative.
Partially-shade grown yerba mate
When it's ready for harvest, two-thirds of the leaves are removed to keep some vegetation remaining to keep regenerating. The leaves are dried in an intense heat to stop the oxidizing process before going through a slower, longer process to completely air-dry. The yerba mate leaves are then milled, and sometimes milled again, creating what's known as 'canchada.' 'It won't brew well unless it's that fine,' Mand says. 'You get more of the polyphenols and aroma.'
Shade-grown yerba mate produces a more palatable taste too. 'It's less bitter and less acidic,' Karr says. Steven adds, 'It doesn't have that edge…some of the guys here try shade-grown mate and call it 'suave.''
Las Semillas
'It was love at first sip,' says Newton, who joined Guayakí as an intern after meeting Karr, who shared a gourd with him, while they were in business school. '[The yerba mate] was so exotic and invigorating…I just knew right away that this was going to be with me for life.'
As the Nineties trickled on, Karr met up with his brother, Steven, a graphic designer, who was living in Europe. 'He showed up at the train station, gave me a big hug and showed me a picture of Alex in the rainforest,' Steven recalls. 'He was like, 'you gotta meet this guy,'' Steven would then move to San Luis Obispo and join Guayakí to boost its brand identity, creating the emblematic wreath logo–composed of woven yerba mate leaves, symbolizing unity, interconnectedness and regeneration.
Older versions of loose leaf packaging
Meanwhile, high school friends Chris Mann, a Harvard economics alumnus, and Richard Bruehl, a food scientist, were operating an organic vegan restaurant on the Central Coast. 'Nothing in economics ultimately made sense because the things that we cared about were all considered externalities,' Mann says. '[Yerba mate] was this amazing product that stood on its own as a superior stimulant. But beneath it, the more you dug, the better it got. We're growing the forest and it's an economic driver for pursuing restoring the rainforest,' he continues to explain. 'It was that missing link.'
The first month that Mann joined in 1997, the company made about $1,000 in revenue. It would ultimately make 40 times that within the following year. Mann served as CEO from 1998 to 2018.
In 2000, they would also bring on Bruehl to round out the germination of las semillas. 'There was an emerging of tribes,' Karr says. 'What we shared was really what we are still about today…being part of a movement of bringing this different mindset…that you heal the body, the mind, the earth.'
Newton, Mann, Bruehl, Pryor, D. Karr and S. Karr planting a yerba mate tree in Misiones Province
In order to get Americans to latch on to an enigma of a beverage like yerba mate, the guys knew they would have to relentlessly demo the product. 'Once we were in the stores, that's when the magic happened,' Pryor says. 'They felt the power of the plant.'
The plan was to create unavoidable theater, starting with their strong 'mate latte.' 'We would froth up the milk and then pour it on top…then pour some cinnamon or cocoa powder,' Steven says. 'We got crafty.'
But Pryor emphasizes, 'it wasn't about convincing; it was sharing.'
By 2001, they reached about $1.5 million in sales without any structured distribution. The six of them went door-to-door, coast-to-coast to pitch natural food stores firsthand. 'We talked to buyers who felt our passion, saw the merits of the brand, and gave us a chance,' Newton says. 'One store led to another.'
Health stores like GNC and Vitamin Shoppe started calling too, viewing yerba mate as a weight loss trick, whether that was justified or not. Sales tripled, but tapered off around 2004. 'It got really tight,' Karr remembers. 'We decided we needed to be a four-season beverage company,' leading them to consider implementing cold beverages for the warmer months.
Glass bottles of tereré
Bruehl would lead the research and development of bottling brewed yerba mate with other added herbs, in essence commercializing yerba mate in the States by taking it from a loose leaf product to a ready-to-drink beverage. 'It's something that hadn't been done in South America before, so we had to do it respectfully, not to insult anybody,' Bruehl says. 'The formulation for the ready-to-drink is out of historic tradition, using some herbal blends combined with mate that tastes great.' Although it had not been introduced in a ready-to-drink format in South America, the cold-brewed version of yerba mate, as opposed to the hot infusion, is known as tereré.
Guayakí would ultimately launch that product at Natural Products Expo West 2005 with three flavors including Magical Mint, which later turned into the best-selling 'Enlighten Mint.' 'You're brewing it strong enough to match this new thing called a Red Bull,' Bruehl says, who made sure to reach a caffeine content of about 140 mg to compete with the growing energy drink market, even though energy and alertness are just one of many beneficial properties of yerba mate.
Beloved yellow cans
Soon Guayakí would introduce what it's now most known for: its yellow cans–ubiquitous on college campuses, grocery stores, convenience stores and today more than 40 thousand retail locations across North America. Rather than brewed yerba mate, these instantly-recognizable cans contain a brewed extract mixed with a panoply of flavors and sweetness levels. This would become Guayakí's core business. The company and its semillas redefined what a container, or 'mate,' could become for the ancient ritual in a modern era.
Today, with more than 20 different varieties, Yerba Madre is the category leader with a commanding 86% market share in the $1.5 billion North American yerba mate market.
Many consumers have come to know the drink more colloquially as terms like 'yellow can of yerb,' rather than Guayakí, a project dedicated to reforestation through the lens of a delicious, cultural beverage. It's another reason for the change to Yerba Madre–a brand with a more clear identity.
ROC-certified bags of Yerba Madre loose leaf
One factor for obtaining the Regenerative Organic Certification is farmer welfare. Yerba Madre has developed its own supply chain that incentivizes farmers to grow regenerative, shade-grown yerba mate exclusively for the American market, paying at least a 25% premium on the conventional yerba mate market so that they all earn a living wage.
Yerba Madre was founded on the concept of regenerative agriculture. But it wasn't until 2024 when it gained ROC certification from the Regenerative Organic Alliance, which formed in 2017. '[The ROC certification] is a high-integrity proxy that can send a signal to consumers that this product is third-party verified,' says Christopher Gergen, CEO of the Regenerative Organic Alliance, which grants the certification. 'You can have confidence that [ROC-certified products have] no chemical inputs, it's taking care of the planet through soil health–and as a result will often be more nutrient dense–and that this product and the farming practices are taking good care of their community.'
'In Brazil we found the perfect partners…' Pryor says about starting to scale beyond the Aché Kue Tuvy tribe when the demand warranted it in the early 2000's, '...small farmers who were already convinced that shade-grown was the best way to grow it.' But in other regions, like Argentina's Misiones Province, the semillas needed to gain the trust of monoculture farmers to help transition them to shade-grown; some had been farming conventionally for decades. Pryor would plant native trees around the sun-grown yerba mate to show the farmers directly how it could be beneficial to them if they were willing to wait a few years for the plants to grow to harvest–rebuilding the rainforest and growing healthier yerba mate as one cohesive process. Growing trees and a company simultaneously.
This business model of market-driven regeneration is now growing more than ever. 'The reason why the Regenerative Organic certification was established is because there was a growing understanding that organic was really important,' Gergen says. 'Yet it wasn't addressing questions of soil health, social fairness, and animal welfare.'
Yerba Madre's loose leaf yerba mate has a Gold-level ROC certification. A goal of the company now is to obtain the certification on every single one of its products, which will require other ingredients, like cane sugar, to come from ROC-certified farms too. Yerba Madre recently kickstarted a pilot program with the Aché Kue Tuvy tribe to grow regenerative mint that will be used in future formulas of the ready-to-drink beverages.
D. Karr, Pryor and Mand at Cereví regeneration hub in Misiones Province, Argentina
'If you want to grow, you also have to create space,' Pryor says. 'Our leadership for the first 25 years reached a certain potential.' That led Ben Mand to take the reins as CEO in 2024 as the company's revenue surpassed $250 million. 'It's already a jewel,' Mand says. 'Now I want to really take it to the next level.'.
Growing up on a dairy farm in Wisconsin, Mand has guided his career with the philosophy of making incremental changes in the food system that reach the masses. Before leading Harmless Harvest, he worked at corporations like Johnson & Johnson and General Mills where he managed tasks like reducing sodium in canned products. 'Transformations are important to me,' he says. '[This rebrand] had to tie to the past and to the future. It had to tie to the meaning of what we do and the power of yerba mate as that mother herb.'
His first run as a CEO started at Harmless Harvest and right out of the gate made the recommendation to turn it into a Regenerative Organic Certified brand–no simple task. 'Nobody was talking about regenerative in 2018,' he says, which is why his board thought his idea was risky. But Mand knew a radical transformation was the only option. 'It was intuitive to me…I'm a big believer in having a long-term mindset in what you're building.'
Within five years, he and his team found more than a dozen farmers in Thailand to help transition their coconut farms to regenerative, eventually earning the company the ROC certification. 'Just to survive, we had to change the economic equation for farmers. There had to be a financial incentive as well to work with us… that also happens to work for our bottom line,' Mand says. 'Living your mission is not a matter of convenience. It's something you just have to do.'
Yerba Madre is no longer a product married to the natural channel. Some of its biggest accounts are 7-Eleven, Albertsons and Kroger. The company remained a self-distributed company through early 2025. It proves that an ROC-certified product and one that prioritizes sustainability and welfare can be commercial too.
Yerba Madre
The six semillas began to take a step back in their roles throughout the covid pandemic when unforeseen challenges made them realize that new leadership would be best for the survival of the business. 'It puts us in a place of more mentorship, being present in guiding principles and values so as the company grows, it doesn't lose its identity,' Pryor says. He, Karr and Mann still serve as Board members.
The loose leaf yerba mate and bagged yerba mate packages will begin to showcase the new Yerba Madre name immediately. The refreshed bottles and cans will roll out throughout the next several months.
The new Yerba Madre name reflects an appreciation for each farmer who grows yerba mate–their efforts in playing a significant role in being both pioneers and future leaders of responsible, regenerative farming around the globe. 'We represent an entire region now,' Pryor says. 'We want to represent this whole ecoregion and all the ethnic groups.'
'It's up to us to figure out how to bring the forest back,' he adds. 'We can be part of nature. We can find that balance.'