From James Frame CEO
The decision to change our name has been coming for some time, and it means a lot to us as it reflects how we have evolved as a company, and expresses who we are now.
In saying that, we are acutely aware that a simple name change means very little if it isn’t backed by actions that reflect, express and support that change, which is why you will start to see and receive a lot more from us.
So, with that in mind, I want to take this opportunity to share with you what our name change means to us and, even more importantly, what this means for you and how your experience with us will change.
First and foremost, we want you to know that all the great things that we already do, and all the many things that you love about us, aren’t going to change at all. Rather, you can expect those things to get even better as we expand and bring in new programs, added support, and new products.
Our management team realized that we had some amazing ideas and that the foundation of what we wanted to do was in place, but we also recognized that we were in no way living up to our potential of providing what we wanted at the level and depth we know we are capable of.
That all changes today.
For us, the most important thing of all is that we express our Why, and that we achieve our Vision and Mission. Many years ago, we as a company defined exactly what our Why or purpose was: To be Conscious, to Lead in every sense, and to Empower.
For us, this was expressed through the medium of health and our Why pledge: Symphony Natural Health is a conscious company that leads through our vision, our intentions, and our actions, empowering people with the knowledge and solutions needed to achieve and maintain their best possible health.
In order to realize our Why, we defined our Vision and Mission, and through that process recognized that our existing name of Natural Health International didn’t completely reflect who we were now.
The word which kept coming up, whether it was our doctors describing how our products worked within the body, how we created our products, or how we designed our seed-to-shelf operation, was always - Symphony.
Our Vision is, and always has been - to create and support a synergistic Symphony within our body and also between our company, the communities we partner with, and the environment we work in to bring about harmony and health for us, our customers and the world we live in.
We believe that we are all part of a series of complex, interdependent relationships that exist both within the sensitive and finely tuned ecosystems of our bodies, and within the environment and ecosystems around us, and that when these ecosystems are in Symphony it creates harmony and health for all.
In music, a Symphony is created by a Composer – a person who creates something that is completely new, who understands and combines the individual beauty of each instrument of the orchestra, in perfect harmony.
We see our founders as Composers in the way that they created our unique product line and synergistic seed-to-shelf supply chain.
As reflected by our Why - to Lead - we could not think of nothing worse than introducing a “new” product to the market where there were already 4 or 5 competing products that all did the same thing. Or a “new” product created by a “DJ” – simply combining existing ingredients together and calling it “new”. Or, even worse, introducing a new product that, according to clinical research there are already 3 or 4 products on the market that are better! What would be the point?
Our process of composing - to create something truly unique, starts with looking at the individual biology and chemistry of each plant. This involves researching what is the ideal species, variety or phenotype in seed selection, discerning which is the best country, environment, soil, elevation and weather to grow it in, and establishing when is the optimal time of the season, day (diurnal cycle), lunar cycle, and method to harvest, in order to optimize the active ingredients in the plant. This process continues by investigating the best way to manufacture each plant so as to concentrate the full spectrum of active ingredients and maximize the bioavailability, only ever using water, temperature, and pressure in the process.
At the same time, we ensure that we are ticking every box our customers want to see - from published human clinical trials, to organic and Kosher certification, to vegan, gluten-free, allergen-free, non-GMO, and completely pure products (strictly excluding excipients, chemicals, colors, flavors or preservatives). Even our packaging meets the strictest standards and includes oxygen and moisture protected blister cards inside each box to optimize stability, recyclable boxes, and printing with vegetable ink. We never take a short cut.
This continues through how our products work in the body. Each product is designed to create a Symphony within the body by returning our cells, hormones, circadian rhythm, or body-detoxification to a state of optimal balance, by restoring us back to harmony and health by addressing the root causes of distress, and by providing renewed support to our foundational health.
Our commitment to individual and collective health culminates in our Triple Bottom Line company culture: Evaluating our social, environmental and economic impact – both internally within our company, and externally in the world.
We believe in forming deep relationships that are life changing, not just with our customers, but also with our business partners around the world.
Having worked in developing countries for 22 years we realized early on that by paying 20-30% more through Fair Trade type programs for commodities like herbs or salt, the income of the local communities were significantly improved.
However, we learned that we could make an even greater impact by establishing strong joint-venture partnerships with the local people to create value-added goods, small industry, and year-round employment, thus injecting up to 10 times the amount of money into those communities and really changing lives.
Our partnerships in Peru and Pakistan have enabled us to not just have a financial impact on the local community, but also a significant social impact. We achieve this through supporting education in local schools, as well as ensuring there is no child or slave labor used in our operations.
We believe our social responsibility extends not just to the health of our customers, but to the health and well-being of our team and partners around the world, and that every single person, whether they are working in a mine in the foot-hills of the Himalayas, in our manufacturing facility in Peru, our warehouse in Utah, or our office in San Francisco, should be able to earn a living wage and, most importantly, have a safe work environment.
To ensure a safe working environment, and to lessen the potential environmental impact on our planet, we do not use explosives in any of our mining processes for Original Himalayan Crystal Salt. But our commitment to having the smallest environmental impact possible extends far beyond our no explosives policy. To minimize the impact we have on local flora, fauna, streams and landscapes, we use only hand-mining techniques to extract our salts and, rather than carve wide roads into the valley and mountainside to cater for large trucks, we make the choice to use man-power and donkeys to transport our crystal stones from the mine to the sorting and packing facilities. And in all of our farming in Peru, Australia, France, and Vanuatu we only engage in organic and sustainable agricultural practices.
We feel that this is all of particular importance now, at a time when many companies in the health industry are being bought up by multinational corporations and are becoming more about profits than helping people, and many of the ways that health is defined and confirmed are fundamentally changing. We believe now, more than ever, that there is a need for our company to Lead by example and be a platform to express our WHY and Vision so as totruly focus on what is best for our customers… especially considering that we ourselves are our own oldest customers!
We trust, that if we as a company can keep our customers and ourselves healthy and happy for the next hundred years through our products and support, then we as a company are most likely to be around for that same hundred years! We are in this for the long run… just like you!
This is why our company’s shareholders include doctors who use our products, people in the healthcare industry, employees and their families, and even some of our customers - All of whom believe in our Vision and together aspire to something new - one complete synergistic Symphony to create harmony and health for all.
