Why Lombardi and Moran chose nightly cocoa over tinctures

Cocoa before bed sounds simple until you ask what is inside the jar.

“I left behind professional hockey to pursue a career in tech.” That plain sentence sets the tone for Beam.

Matt Lombardi and Kevin Moran first knew each other at Boston College, Lombardi on the ice and Moran on the diamond. Lombardi spent time inside the New Jersey Devils and Pittsburgh Penguins systems before a concussion closed that path, and Moran was selected by the Chicago White Sox before injury and operations closed his. Later they met again while preparing for the Boston Marathon and an IRONMAN, trying CBD for lingering strains, soreness and worry.

The shop shelves left them dissatisfied. They saw oils carrying small amounts of THC plus unclear extras, with little detail about source or analysis. Beam began in Massachusetts as a response, at first a tincture plus a topical lotion offered from a folding table on Boston sidewalks, inside CrossFit boxes and at juice bars. Company material points to organically raised hemp from Colorado, a THC free stance, and an early hire with cannabis experience to guide development.

The present range is wider and more routine led. Sleep, gut care, hormones and everyday function form the core, Dream leading sales and Biotic carrying the gut line. What stands out is the intentional step back from CBD language, describing Beam as a health and wellness house, and the shift of effort toward powders, taste, batches and returning buyers instead of newness. For Root to Bottle readers, the plant story and the lab file both matter here.

The founders speak plainly about sourcing, mixing and testing, which makes their account useful for anyone who keeps cocoa, herbal teas or mushroom powders on a kitchen shelf. What follows traces hemp fields, cocoa harvests and culture banks, with attention to where tradition appears and where measured study must carry weight.

You call Beam a health and wellness company rather than a CBD company by 2022. What changed in sourcing and making once Dream and drink powders took the lead over oils.

Kevin: Routine taught us more than any lone botanical. Sleep and steady habits count for the most. Dream remade our supply work. Where we once handled one hemp concentrate with a carrier oil, we now handle cocoa, five nighttime support components, tastes such as Cinnamon Cocoa and Brownie Batter, sweeteners and powders that act differently with heat and damp air.

Powder work brings blending, grind size, dampness control and even servings. A jar marked 20 servings must deliver the same scoop on the first morning and the last. That calls for proven mixing, checks during runs, and lot based review of finished goods. The field remains relevant, yet the mixing room and the fill line matter just as much.

Matt: Athletics and business both reward how you read a setback. In our time, the ones who prevail turn a hard result into useful material. Hemp paperwork gave us record keeping. Cocoa gave us flavour steadiness and habit. We aim to hand people practical support for their best days, whether they compete, study, drive a school bus, care for an older family member or anything between, and that called for a system able to produce a nightly cup, not just a dropper.

Biotic sells at 64.99 dollars as a gut superblend with prebiotics, probiotics, postbiotics and glutathione in tastes such as Crisp Apple. Live microbes demand exact sourcing and steadiness. How do you manage strain identity, counts and survival through shelf life.

Kevin: Biotic runs as our most demanding line. Prebiotic fibers come in as dry powders with plain limits. Probiotics ask for more. Every strain carries an identity, a bank record and a count in colony forming units. The panel states numbers at production or at expiry, and our task is to keep that number steady across mixing, filling and storage.

We ask the culture house for strain level proof, with papers for strength and purity. The mix stays dry, packed against dampness, held inside set temperature bounds. Postbiotics are heat treated ferments, so they hold up better, and glutathione comes in as a tested ingredient with its own assay. Each finished lot is reviewed so the Supplement Facts panel lines up with what was mixed and what stability records allow.

Matt: Repeat buyers guide us more than fads. Gut powders are judged on stir, flavour and tolerance across weeks, so steadiness from batch to batch outweighs a fresh taste. That steadiness rests on the same farms, the same strains and the same screens, lot upon lot.

Dream now appears as Original Cinnamon Cocoa in 20 servings for 49.99 dollars and 30 servings for 64.99 dollars, with Pumpkin Spice and Brownie Batter, and is described as made with 5 powerful sleep ingredients. Trace that cocoa from field to jar, and note where records run strong and where they run thin.

Matt: Cocoa starts the path. Pods grow on farms, beans ferment, dry and roast, then mill and press. That base reaches us with origin documents and limits for dampness and microbes. The five nighttime support parts arrive apart, each with its own analysis certificate and identity check. Validated mixers join them, then we test for even spread before jars fill.

The finished lot packet is strongest. Marker strength, micro review, heavy metals and label fit sit in the batch record, and the code on the jar leads to those pages. We can state contents and point to screens behind the Supplement Facts panel. Full mapping of each small flavour part across seasons is thinnest. Cocoa crops turn with harvest, and flavour houses blend to keep taste level. We keep limits and screens, yet we do not yet print each grower for each minor part. That disclosure is the next task.

You began with a tincture and a lotion from a folding table on Boston streets, in CrossFit gyms and juice shops, after joint IRONMAN training and CBD trials for old injuries. What did those first sales teach about what shoppers truly read on labels.

Matt: Kevin and I first met at Boston College, I with hockey and he with baseball. After a serious concussion, I stepped away from pro hockey toward tech work. Kevin lived through his own baseball injuries. Later we trained together for an IRONMAN and tried CBD to ease older injuries we carried.

We sought a product that fit our own wellness bar, yet locating something natural and open about contents proved hard. When Beam took shape, we were not CBD specialists, but we felt we could bring something more sound than much on sale. On sidewalks and in gyms, shoppers posed plain queries. Where does this come from. What sits inside. Does it carry THC. Solid partners from the start shaped Beam progress, because we needed grounded replies, not taglines.

Kevin: Sport teaches full effort toward each task, then honest handling of wins or losses that follow. You act, often wrongly half the time, yet you watch outcomes closely. That table showed us to listen and to print labels a buyer could verify.

Your no list is exact, no THC, no binders, no dyes, no excipients, no unknown substances, no opaque ingredient lists. How do you judge necessary against extra inside a flavoured powder in daily work.

Matt: The screen is all you need and nothing you do not. A part stays only when it aids taste, keeps stability or serves the labeled purpose. Flavour and sweetness spark debate. A nighttime cocoa must taste soft and familiar or the habit lapses, so we accept flavour parts named openly and checked, while we turn away dyes and veiled mixes that conceal contents.

Kevin: Trust forms at the Other Ingredients line. We scan it as our buyers do. Every helper must justify itself for flow, blend or damp control, with a limit and a screen. When fill weight, evenness and shelf span hold without it, we omit it. That is the sense behind starting your own wellness revolution and operating at your actual best. The shift is unglamorous. A brief label with a trail.

Your early pledge cited organically grown hemp in Colorado, processed to be THC free and pharmaceutical grade, when you described the market as unregulated with trace THC, metals and pesticides. How did you build sourcing and screens to support that language.

Matt: Anything worth building asks for steady daily work. To be strong or to raise a sound firm, you show up each day. For us that started at the grower rather than the message. Organically raised hemp in Colorado formed the base because we could name the state, see the setup, and request cultivation papers.

We barred THC and risky extras at the outset, plus binders, dyes, excipients and unclear inputs. Each inbound lot needed an analysis certificate, then outside lab review for identity, strength and pollutants like heavy metals and pesticides. Fill and capsule checks ran against the label so milligrams matched the panel.

Kevin: I attended Boston College for baseball and there met Matt Lombardi, now my Beam partner. That bond carried to vendor choice. We prefer open ingredient lists over hidden proprietary mixes, and we prefer teaching buyers over chasing fast sales. Any lot outside spec stayed back.

The growing ground still matters, but so do the blending room and the bottling line.

Matt Lombardi and Kevin Moran

Beam now covers sleep, gut health, hormones, performance and kids nutrition, in one case co created with Shawn Johnson, and you talk of better sleep and all day wellness. How do you hold provenance steady as offerings grow and harvests vary.

Kevin: Growth brings more farms, fermenters and flavour batches, so systems hold us. Approved farms, approved culture collections, approved flavour houses. Each holds a spec, a duty to flag changes and a test schedule. When a harvest moves, the lot must still clear the same identity and purity bars or face refusal.

Matt: We learned that anything worth chasing resists ease, and origin work needs daily care. Formulas stay fixed, backup sources qualify ahead of need, and the lot record stays central. Shoppers keep a small shelf for years. Our role is to keep this year jar aligned with last year jar, with documents behind it.

Back at Boston College and those street level first sales, what must happen before you can post the whole chain for Dream and Biotic, grower names, extract ratios, lab sheets, for a careful home buyer to confirm.

Matt: Finished lot pages sit near ready and naming of main growers keeps improving. Full release needs steady grower disclosure from each minor vendor plus approval to pass along audits, with a site tool where lot marks call up matching certificates. That tool is under build.

Kevin: Sport teaches complete commitment to each effort. Here that means stating what traces today, stating what does not trace yet, and completing records to narrow the gap. When a household buyer enters a lot mark and views the farm, the extract ratio where apt, the standardisation where stated, and the outside lab findings for that batch, the label has served.

Closing note from the desk

What lingers is how calmly the founders invite review. Lombardi and Moran talk like former players used to logs, missed reps and clean repeats. They state refusals directly and walk through batches, mixes and screens without ornament.

Beam aimed for nightly and daily goods with labels that give source, amount and limits. From the material at hand, finished lot files read as the firmest part, grower naming for minor parts as the loosest, and clickable lot codes as the candid next move. Tradition gives helpful context for cocoa, hemp and cultured gut ingredients, yet present screens and steady routines carry the claim.

Product spotlight

Dream holds the line as the nighttime cocoa. Original Cinnamon Cocoa lists at 49.99 dollars for 20 servings, with 30 servings at 64.99 dollars, plus Pumpkin Spice and Brownie Batter in 20 servings. Stir the powder into hot water or warm milk at night, using the serving noted on the label.

Biotic serves the morning shelf as the daily gut mix. It lists at 64.99 dollars, offered in Crisp Apple and in Duo Packs that match tastes like Crisp Apple with Mixed Berry. It blends prebiotics, probiotics, postbiotics and glutathione in a powder to stir into water each day, using the serving noted on the label. Readers who are pregnant, nursing, taking medicine or managing a health condition should ask a doctor or pharmacist before use.