In honor of O2 Living's certification as a Women Owned business, we wanted to introduce you to our founder, Rosemary Devlin.
Rosemary Devlin, founder of O2 Living, parent company of Living Juice and Living Health and Wellness, is passionate about wellness and healthy living - but that hasn’t always been her focus. When she arrived in the U.S. on a visitors visa at age 18, she was eager to escape the bombings that rocked her home of Northern Ireland, then at the peak of the civil rights movement. “It was time to start a new life in the land of opportunity,” says Rosemary.
Two weeks after landing in New York City, she met the man who would become her husband. They started a construction business together, and as the business grew, so did their family – they now have 5 sons, ages 25 to 30. “It just happened,” Rosemary laughs. “We doubled up on the last birth hoping for a girl, but were blessed with identical twin boys. Hopefully there will be a few girls in the next generation!”
Between the games, practices and other activities throughout Westchester County of five rambunctious boys, a healthy lifestyle with clean eating wasn’t a priority. While Rosemary took great pleasure in recreating the traditional recipes her beloved mother had taught her in Ireland, “Back in the 90s it was all fast food,” she recalls. “Once my boys got the flavor of a Big Mac and chicken nuggets with sweet and sour sauce, there was no turning back! There was no talk about the dangers of processed foods.”
But a near tragedy on a transatlantic flight changed everything. Her oldest son went into anaphylactic shock, a reaction to mislabeled airplane snacks. That terrifying experience inspired Rosemary’s clean, holistic health journey. “I became laser-focused on reading the label of every food and beverage my family was consuming, leading to my discovery that most foods weren’t as clean or healthy as I had thought,” she says. “I couldn’t believe the amount of food that was processed. Clean, fresh, healthy eating and living became my focus and passion.”
Rosemary decided to create a community dedicated to healthy living. “My mission
is to help people attain a lifestyle that is healthy, enriched and vibrant,” she says. To that end, she took over yoga studios in Cross River, New York, adding a beautiful holistic treatment spa and health product boutique, as well as a raw, vegan café. A trained American culinary school chef helped create recipes, smoothies and cold-pressed juices that at first were sold only in the café. But the juices got so popular among yoga students and customers that Rosemary decided to start delivering and selling them all throughout the tri-state area and beyond.
“We’re available from Maryland to Connecticut,” says Rosemary, whose sons Ryan and Corey joined the Living Juice team after graduating from college. “In 2017, we opened a new state of the art manufacturing facility in Connecticut that will greatly increase juice production and allow for expanded distribution.”
Developing the healthiest, best tasting juice took time, and lots of testing. “The problem with other juice brands is their use of high heat, where all the nutrients are removed and fortified with vitamins and minerals that are unnatural,” Rosemary explains. “We wanted to make sure all the nutrients were present in our juices. That’s why I decided on cold-pressed juices, never heated, where all the nutrients remain. We also never add water. Many competitors list water as their main ingredient! Living Juice is living nutrients from the organic fruits and vegetables.”
Organic juice with no sugar, water, or preservatives added offer an easy, effective way to add more fruits and vegetables to an everyday diet. “I’m extremely busy, but I make sure to get my daily fruits and vegetables through Living Juices,” says Rosemary. “It’s the perfect addition to my healthy lifestyle.”
With the juice business booming, Rosemary learned of a new natural way to improve her everyday health, hemp extract! She first learned of hemp extract (CBD) as a possible treatment for arthritis, and quickly found herself recommending it to her own mother with great success. The effect that CBD had on Rosemary's mother inspired her to create Living Health and Wellness, complete with a line of hemp extract and hormone products.
With Living Juice, Living Health and Wellness and the holistic spa and yoga studio at O2 Living headquarters, Rosemary is truly seeing out her vision to create a community dedicated to healthy living.