Scaling an Asian Medicine Brand into Whole Foods Market and Walmart

In this Founder Feature, host Caitlin Bricker sits down with Kai Lim and David Yu, co-founders of Reprise Health, a modern gummy brand making Eastern herbal wellness accessible and approachable, to talk about how they built a brand that now spans natural and conventional retail.

Kai and David met in business school and bonded over the same childhood memory: grandmothers on two continents feeding them bitter herbal teas and soups. Kai grew up in Singapore, studied accounting and finance, and started his career at Boston Consulting Group. David studied math at UCLA, then spent his 20s abroad, including six years in Johannesburg managing international supply chains for hospitals and schools. After visiting Chinatown herb shops in New York and San Francisco, they noticed curious younger shoppers leaving empty-handed, and Reprise was born.

Caitlin, Kai, and David dig into why gummies were the right format, how their formulas were developed with certified herbalists and a fifth-generation Taiwanese herbal medicine company, how every batch is lab tested three times, and what it took to pass Whole Foods’ quality and legal review. They also cover the strategy behind launching into Walmart with travel-size packs, growing from about 200 to over 2,000 doors in 12 months, and the founders agreement and weekly retrospective they use to keep their co-founder relationship strong.

Listen in as they discuss:

• How grandmothers on two continents and a trip to Chinatown herb shops sparked the idea for Reprise
• Why Reprise is a story of rediscovery, not family recipes passed down
• Why gummies make ancient herbs approachable, with over 70% of customers having never tried ginseng before
• How formulas were developed with herbalists and a family company in Tainan, Taiwan that has made herbal medicine since 1892
• How every batch is lab tested three times, with up to 70% of raw herbs rejected before extraction
• What it took to pass a five-month quality and legal review at Whole Foods
• How Reprise climbed to top-three rankings in sleep, turmeric, and menopause gummies at Whole Foods California
• Why a Whole Foods launch proved quality, and why Walmart tests the brand’s mission of access
• Why Reprise chose a 10-gummy travel pack for Walmart to make trial easy
• The founders agreement, quarterly reviews, and Friday retrospectives that act as “resentment prevention devices”

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Episode Links:

• Kai Lim LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/kai-lim-reprise
• David Yu LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/davidsyu
• Reprise Health LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/reprise-health
• Reprise Health Website: www.reprisehealth.com
• Reprise Health Instagram: @reprisehealth
  
  

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• Episode music by Super Fantastics