We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Ned Kellenberger. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Ned below.

Ned , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. To kick things off, we’d love to hear about things you or your brand do that diverge from the industry standard

We have been studying the devastating effects of microplastics, and as part of this process, we decided that we could not ever sell our products in plastic bottles. Ever. We use high-quality glass to minimize the chemical effects of plastic for both us and our environment.

We believe in the raw, healing power of nature. We do not pasteurize or pressurize or zap our products. It really is fresh-pressed, cold-pressed juice, immediately served to customers or vendors within 24 hours of being pressed. This is an impossibility with bigger juicing corporations. They need longer shelf life for shipping their products nationally or regionally, and their vendors also usually require long shelf lives to limit risk. So the entire system compromises on health by pasteurizing or pressurizing the juice. It kills everything that would normally cause the juice to spoil within a few days, but unfortunately it also kills many of the good nutrients from nature. The juicer and the grocery store both win, but the customer loses!

Ned , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

We help health-conscious businesses and individuals in Kansas City ( and soon nationally! ) access premium fresh, hand-harvested, cold-pressed sugarcane grass products, carefully preserving all of the grass’s natural nutrients, WITHOUT destructive processing, WITHOUT pressurization or pasteurization, WITHOUT additives of any kind, and WITHOUT plastic.

We take care of health FIRST. Everything else follows after. We are a purpose-driven brand, teaching and educating people on the importance of their health to make the kind of impact on the world that they know they can make. Nothing makes us feel better than when we see people transforming into their best selves as they serve their communities and world. Good health brings out the best in all of us.

We call sugarcane Earth’s Tastiest Grass™, because number 1) it is directly from Earth, NOT from labs, 2) it is delicious, and 3) it is a grass, which all of us instinctively realize makes it LOADED with some of the best nutrients available. It has an incredibly high concentration polyphenols, including at least seven kinds of flavonoids. In simple terms, the juice is a potent anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, anti-cancer, and antimicrobial, is used as treatment for lungs, kidneys, brain, heart, and liver. It reduces risk of heart disease, and significantly lowers LDL cholesterol levels. It improves memory and cognition, notably in people who struggle with Alzheimer’s or dementia. It helps the body regulate hormones, including shutting down proteins that block testosterone. It prevents cancer through at least four different mechanisms. It is used to treat issues of the skin, used to promote oral health. It reduces cortisol levels, making it a natural powerful anti-anxiety and anti-depression agent. It fights diabetes by increasing insulin sensitivity, leading to healthier kidney function. Not surprisingly, it is linked with longevity!

A little about me: I’m Ned Kellenberger, founder of Merlion Beverage Company. I’m a professional violinist with the Grammy-nominated St. Petersburg String Quartet. Before I joined the quartet, I lived in Singapore working as a school principal, where I was first introduced to Earth’s Tastiest Grass™ in outdoor hawker markets. I developed such a taste for it, that when I came back to the USA, I had to figure out how to get it here! Sugarcane only grows in tropical and subtropical climates, so it was tricky to find a way to get it to Kansas City, and required many visits to South Florida, but here we are! We are grateful to our USA farm partners, and we feel very blessed to be able to provide luxurious nourishment to our community.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

I flew down to South Florida multiple times to find a sugarcane partner, and I was not having any luck! I remember driving around all day in Homestead, a sugarcane growing area, looking for sugarcane farms. I about destroyed my vehicle driving through rough, unpaved fields, on some of the roughest terrain I have ever driven on. At one point, I drove into a pond, and barely got out before drowning my vehicle, and possibly myself. Whenever I get discouraged, I think of how far I have come on this journey. The real pleasure in business is in the process of self-discovery and personal growth. So I had about given up, when I came across a sign, GUARAPO, the word used down there for sugarcane juice. It was a crude stand at a farm. I pulled over, and asked about sugarcane, and I will never forget the feeling when I discovered, through our conversation in broken English, that they sold bunches of sugarcane stalks.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

What dooms a lot of businesses is that they create a wonderful product, and then expect to easily market it, or expect that the sheer greatness of the product will secure its popularity. But the business fails, because from the very start, they considered the product more than the consumer. It may be a great product, but how does it serve customers? How does it improve people’s lives?

I was the same way. I was too self-focused on how great my own journey was, how great my own product was. I got too caught up in all the details of the business, and I had to finally stop and realize that it is the customer that matters! Businesses are about other people, about our relationships with each other, and relationships with customers. It is about how we can serve, not how they can serve us! Forget everything else, including sometimes my own preferences! That takes a lot of humility, to get outside of yourself, and realize the true purpose of business. What does the customer want? What does the customer need?

We became a customer-first business.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://merlionbeverages.com
• Instagram: merlion_beverage

Image Credits

Pilsen Photo Coop