My Naturi - Rodica Belocosov

Rodica Belocosov, Founder of My Naturi

Rodica Belocosov

In this interview, Rodica Belocosov, managing director and founder of My Naturi, shares the story of creating the business over the pandemic and what they have in store for upcoming months.

What do you do, and how did you get into the industry?

My Naturi was born out of the idea that high-quality, natural food products could be brought to the Malaysian consumer at fair prices. My Naturi imports, exports, distributes and sells fair-priced superfood products. 

From award-winning Moldovan honey, Malaysian chocolate and premium European walnuts, Brazilian acai, Japanese matcha to mineral water from remote Georgian springs, we provide Malaysian consumers with an unprecedented level of access to the best products from independent farmers and producers – at prices they can afford.

My Naturi co-founders Rodica Belosocov and Thomas Stoffels met when they came to Malaysia in 2017 for an internship at a small startup in Kuala Lumpur. They loved the city so much they decided to stay instead of returning to Europe. But they missed one thing about their home countries: the access to high-quality, natural food products that weren’t so expensive. In 2020, with all that extra time in quarantine, they started My Naturi to bring better, tastier, and healthier options from small farmers and producers straight to the kitchens of Malaysian families.

Share with us an interesting story from behind the scenes.

Some of our products come from the most remote areas with shipping routes that are non-existent or not well-defined. 

When we shipped our first honey cargo from the Moldovan countryside to Malaysia, the shipment got stopped at the border with Romania, which we had to pass to get to Constanta Port, where the container ship was awaiting. 

The officers on duty could not comprehend that a honey shipment was scheduled to sail out to Malaysia. In their 35 years of service, they’ve never seen this. For the longest time, most agricultural products from Moldova have been shipped to Russia only. 

 After some back and forth, which included explaining to the officials working at the port that Malaysia was an actual country, they reluctantly agreed. They later joked we were the first ever to establish this shipping line, something we plan to do more often in the future. 

The key takeaway here is that most companies look for their products in already established places—wine from France, cheese from the Netherlands, honey from China and so forth. We look for the sites that are still untouched and secretly produce the best stuff at reasonable price points.

Natural Honey Malaysia
Honey

What’s a food memory from your childhood or travels that stands out?

Although I knew I wanted to start my own business, my most recent trip home to Moldova directed me towards what we are doing now. I had access to natural food products throughout my entire childhood – coming from local farmers, sometimes even my grandparents’ garden. I still remember the taste of linden honey with the linden tea leaves collected from our yard.

What’s the best/ worst part of your job?

With so many products and ongoing R&D on new products, our fridge is never empty. 

There isn’t really a bad part, but the most challenging is trying to educate the market on what high-quality products should really cost. We’ve discovered consumers here accept and are very much used to exorbitant prices at the hands of greedy companies. If you come, like us, to the market with more affordable products, it takes time to explain to the consumers that the product isn’t cheap, inferior or bad. It’s just at a fair price. 

What’s your favourite food and beverage pairing?

A cheese platter with honey, walnuts, grapes and a glass of wine. 

Rodica Belocosov My Naturi
French Walnuts

What’s one of the wildest/ funniest things you’ve seen behind the scenes?

Our products are great and fair-priced, but this comes with some obstacles. Most places we source from don’t have the proper infrastructure yet. The most extreme example is for one of our newest members of the honey collection, Le Souffle d’Adore. The high-mountain honey from Kyrgyzstan has to be carried down with the help of horses since cars or any other motor vehicles can’t access the hives located atop the mountains. 

The perfect day for Rodica Belocosov would be…

The most satisfying thing that can happen on a day is when our customers reach back to tell us how much they love our products and that they’ve discovered a new place on the map called Moldova.

What do you do for fun?

We love exploring new flavours and creating new recipes with our superfoods. We frequently have a few close friends over to test out new honey variants and peculiar pairings! 

What’s something you’d like guests to know about My Naturi?

We sell super/natural foods and are expanding our collection quickly. We will be the one-stop-shop for your healthy daily source of food. 

We price our products fairly while ensuring the producers and farmers we work with are also being paid fair wages.  

We are a responsible business. We give back to the community, and being eco-friendly is how we started right off the bat. 

How has the pandemic changed you, your perspective or the way you operate?

My Naturi started during the pandemic. We’ve had the idea for a long time, but the recent global shift towards health and well-being was what motivated us to take the first step. Choosing to start our business online also gave us an advantage because of the lower operational costs.

What’s your view on the food/drink scene in KL?

I think KL is blessed with an enormous variety of cuisines. It is also great to see an increasing interest in healthy food and alternative diets (such as vegan) in the community.  

How has the pandemic changed you as a person?

During the pandemic, I had more time to reflect on what was important to me and what I wanted to accomplish. It gave me the final push to start my journey as an entrepreneur.

What’s in store for you in the upcoming months?

Exciting times! We are opening our first brick and mortar store, launching an exciting new structure of our business (stay tuned) and rapidly expanding our collection. Look forward to more honey varieties, buckwheat tea, sea buckthorn tea, more cacao products, saffron, acai, pomegranates, mineral water, matcha, kombucha, and many more…

Find more interviews similar to this one with Rodica Belocosov here. And, stay up to date with the latest food and beverage happenings in KL here.

One Comment

  1. Wow, I wish they had a branch here, I would be buying on a regular basis. Hope all is well. Cheers Diane

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