JOYÀ was founded by Certified Holistic Nutritionist and classically-trained chef Ruth Elnekave. Ruth began her career as a corporate lawyer at a large firm, but all throughout her legal career, she had always felt the “entrepreneurial bug”. Despite having practiced law for seven years, Ruth had never truly felt excited or passionate about her work and, through the guidance of a career coach, eventually realized that her calling was to help others find true joy and well-being in their lives. Immediately upon leaving the law, Ruth had begun to experience debilitating health issues, which she later found were the result of her body shutting down from years of chronic stress. While searching for medicinal herbs that would help alleviate her symptoms, Ruth quickly discovered a lack of decent options on the market; all she managed to find were bitter-tasting powders and hard to swallow pills that deterred her from regular consumption. It was then that Ruth decided to start her own company with the goal of empowering others to find joy through nourishing and healing foods.

Ruth originally conceived JOYÀ as a wellness cafe offering functional foods, elixirs and herbal teas that she had formulated over the course of a year. However, even after 10 months of scoping various locations, Ruth wasn’t satisfied with the available options. This eventually caused her to pivot JOYÀ into a direct-to-consumer brand, which ended up being a blessing in disguise; the COVID pandemic descended shortly thereafter. Today, the JOYÀ team offers a range of functional herbal supplement blends and functional chocolates, each formulated to be as delicious as they are nourishing and effective. They are on a mission to bring people joy everyday through their plant-based, adaptogenic and sustainable supplements and superfoods.