From Trinny Woodall to St Remio's Julia Tink, Women Building Brands That Mean Something
Before she sold a single bag of St Remio coffee, Julia Tink spent eight years running her own PR agency. Before Trinny London, Trinny Woodall spent years on British television telling the nation what to wear. Two women who knew how to tell a story. Two women who decided to build something of their own with it.
This is a women in business story about what happens when you stop working for someone else's brand and start building one that stands for something.
2017, a big year for two founders
In 2017 Trinny Woodall launched Trinny London, a makeup brand built around stackable pots designed to make getting ready simpler.
That same year, St Remio funded its first project at origin. The Premium Rewards Sharing Program gave the women of the TUK farming cooperative in Rwanda tools, livestock, solar lamps and more, so they could grow better coffee and earn more from it. It was the first step in a model Julia and her co-founder Trent Knox have backed every year since. Not charity. Investment.
From telling stories to building brands
Both Julia and Trinny understood something a lot of founders learn the hard way. People don't just buy a product. They buy into what it stands for.
Writing on our blog back in 2019, Julia put it simply. "Create a brand that STANDS for something. Not a pretty label, but something with MEANING and PURPOSE."
For Trinny, that meaning is confidence, and making beauty feel achievable for women of every age. For St Remio, it's connecting the person holding the cup to the women who grew the coffee in it.
Community first, always
Trinny London grew through community. Trinny showed up online, live and unpolished, and built a loyal following of women who trust her advice.
St Remio's community stretches a little further. It runs from Melbourne cafés and kitchen benches all the way to West Rwanda, where the Cocagi Women's Coffee Farming Cooperative has more than 1,100 members. Since 2017/18, St Remio has funded land, training and agronomists for these women growers, including 12,000 coffee trees in 2019/20 alone. Today the project has provided work for more than 16,000 people. You can see every year of it on our Projects page.
Your cup, part of the story
You'll probably never meet the women of Cocagi. But every time you choose St Remio, you're backing women who are building businesses of their own, at the source. Meet the women behind it in Meet Patricia, the agronomist behind Cocagi coffee, read Julia's own words in Meet Julia Tink, then find the St Remio coffee that suits your machine.
Stay tuned. Something exciting is brewing, and we can't wait to share it with you. Keep an eye on this space.
Follow along for more stories from Melbourne to Rwanda on our Instagram and TikTok.
One Bean. One Cup. One Community.®
