Our Story

Graasi is not your average beverage start-up. In fact, it happened by accident. 

Our start, oddly enough, was a mission to create jobs in our founder’s, Chris LaCorata, wife’s hometown, a rural community hit hard with an uncommon amount of factory shutdowns and severe job loss. This was the very town Chris LaCorata started his manufacturing career in a plant that was amongst those shut down forcing him and his wife to involuntarily relocate. Little did he know, this would be a theme he saw played out repeatedly in communities across the U.S. in the decades that followed.  

As an operating executive with a network of factories and distribution centers, our founder witnessed too many rural communities hit hard under the “outsourcing” and “consolidations” trends of big corporations in the past decades. Some 5 million jobs have been lost according to Industry Week reports just from 2000 to 2012 and 45,000 factories have been shut down from 2002 to 2022 according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

The damage of these losses can have a profound and long-lasting effect on communities. “It’s heartbreaking. These are some of the hardest working people on the planet,” says LaCorata. What is rarely reported on is the aftermath of a plant closure where businesses that remain, like LaCorata’s, have to deal with the consequences: services, support businesses, talent, crime, and, worst of all, the drugs. Sadly, the news cycle just moves on, and most Americans aren’t aware of the damage left behind, especially to rural communities.  

All for what, to send jobs to foreign nations? Manufacturing matters, and it matters right here!  

Deciding to at least try and do something about it, LaCorata hung his corporate hat up in 2017 and made a call to the local industrial development agency in his wife’s hometown. Flash forward two years, six different stake holder groups, multiple presentations, a senator, a county executive, and countless work sessions later, and Empire State Brands project was born. A vertically integrated grower processor project estimated to have a positive impact on over 250 farmers, 400 local jobs, and $91 million in economic activity.

And then…. a once in a generation pandemic hits, creating massive challenges to the overall project. As shutdowns and chaos raged on, we saw consumers become more interested in clean, healthy products, especially those with immunity boosting power and decided there was no other alternative but to take what we had learned and pivot. 

With that, Graasi was born! We know that in today’s fast-paced world, people are looking for convenient ways to stay healthy. At Graasi, we strive to offer products that are healthy, clean, and trustworthy for every consumer. Our barley grass water contains vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants and is USDA certified organic so consumers know that they can trust what’s on the label. We also add the recommended daily allowance of vitamins C, D, and zinc for an added immunity boost. Not only is part of our mission to offer healthy, clean products, but we also make sure all our ingredients are sourced and the product is made in the United States. As a small business, we want to contribute to better health for the people in our communities!

In our view the more we manufacture in our own backyards the better! Got a story about a factory closing in your town? Send it along using the contact form below. We would love to hear and share it!