The Real Aloe Story

I am Malia Mundell Azuaje, and I am the daughter of the founders of the Real Aloe company. This is the story of my parents’ leap of faith in a product made from a plant that was put on this earth to help human kind and reduce suffering.

In the late 1960’s my father and mother lived in Bensenville, Illinois. My father, Frank Mundell, worked in construction, and my mother, Mary Ann Mundell, worked for the Keebler corporation as a secretary. My father had a very bad case or arthritis in his arms and hands and was having a hard time working in the cold weather of Illinois. Somehow my dad heard about a man in Texas that had a unique nursery. In this nursery the Texan grew a plant called Aloe vera, and it was known to help with arthritic pain. With this in mind my parents took a trip to meet this farmer, named Mr. Kenwood, in Dallas, Texas.

Mr. Kenwood was a very approachable man, and well versed in the use of natural herbs and supplements to improve human health, but he was especially passionate about Aloe vera. He told my father that a daily drink of Aloe vera would help his arthritis go away. At the time, Mr. Kenwood had one Mexican girl bottling Aloe vera juice by hand. Mr. Kenwood gave a few bottles of his precious supply to my father to take home and try. To my Dad’s surprise the Aloe vera drinks worked! My father’s arthritic pain noticeably decreased. Right then and there my parents decided to sell Aloe vera to everyone they knew. Dad immediately called Mr. Kenwood and ordered a number of cases of Aloe vera. Within no time my parents were running a distribution company named Lily of the Desert.

Now, my father had heard that truckers get stomach ulcers more frequently than the general population; perhaps because they are more likely to eat poor quality truck stop food. Or perhaps they spent too much of their day in the sitting position and didn’t exercise their bodies. Whatever the case, my Dad went to the local truck stop and spoke with dozens of truckers about their health issues. He convinced some of the truckers to try his Aloe vera drink for their stomach ulcers. On a later trip back to the truck stop, many of the truckers had positive results to share with my Dad, including a reduction in stomach problems and even some additional benefits that they had experienced.

Even while Lily of the Desert grew as a business, my Father continued to work in construction. To increase the growth of Lily of the Desert my Dad recruited Robert Seiler, my grandfather on my Mom’s side, to start selling Aloe vera drinks door to door. Eventually my grandfather ran into a gentleman who was interested in promoting the health benefits of Aloe vera on the radio. My grandfather did an interview for a Chicago radio station and mentioned that Lily of the Desert Aloe Vera should be sold in health food stores across America. Well, that was the beginning of something incredible. The phones literally started to ring off the hook as store owners from across America called to learn more about this amazing elixir containing called Aloe vera juice. Given the increased interest in the drink, my parents hired my Mom’s brother, Keith, to join in the business. Things were really starting to catch fire.

My parents knew that their mission was to use Lily of the Desert Aloe Vera to better the quality of life, experienced by the people they touched. With almost all of their life savings my father bought two station wagons and loaded them with Aloe vera Gel & Juice so he and Keith could deliver products to health food stores on in the Mid-West. Lily of the Desert was growing more rapidly than anyone had anticipated. After much discussion my parents decided to expand to the West cCoast. With little ceremony my family moved to California to start a new chapter in our lives and make the Lily of the Desert brand a nationwide business. Once again my father had to establish a grass roots interest in Aloe vera. Most people had never heard of the plant, and fewer still understood the health benefits that it offered.

A few years passed and my parents were able to build a viable business presence on the West Coast. All the while, Keith continued to sell Lily of the Desert health drinks in the Mid-West. At first it appeared that there was an excellent business arrangement between my parents and my uncle Keith. Over time, however, my Uncle’s appetite for an expensive lifestyle grew unsustainable. From my parents’ perspective, Keith was spending more than he was making selling nutritional drinks, and they had to do something before he put them out of business. Eventually my parents and Keith decided to go their own ways. Ownership of the Lily of the Desert brand was transferred to Keith, while my parents started a new Aloe vera drink company called Real Aloe, Inc. in 1972.

Making Real Aloe a successful business was a responsibility for all members of my family. In fact, in the beginning the business was run right out of our home. My seven brothers and I contributed by labeling bottles and making sure the final product was ready for UPS delivery each business day. The commitment my parents made to Real Aloe was unwavering. After considering all the risks my parents decided to move ahead and channel most of the Real Aloe profit right back into the business, renting a small warehouse in Simi Valley so production could be increased significantly. My parents were patient and persistent – Real Aloe grew steadily over the years and all the while I watched and learned from their example. They were my inspiration.

My father would load a van full of Aloe vera Gel & Juice and drive to a town and tear out the health food page from the phone book and make cold calls to all the local health food stores in that area. He would approach the owner of the store and talk about Aloe vera and try to educate him or her about the product. Before he would leave he would ask if it would be OK to clear a small spot on their shelf where he could leave some product and product literature. Then my Dad would religiously return 30 days later and if the product was still there, he would remove it from the shelf, no questions asked. But if some, or all, of the product was sold, then he would collect the wholesale price for the missing product and restock it.


As my brothers grew older and finished high school they helped my parents by doing increasingly more important tasks. My oldest brother, Frank Daniel Mundell (Danny), for example, was our formulator for all the Aloe vera products. In my younger days I attended many Health Expos with my parents and learned all about Aloe vera and the benefits you get from using it. When I turned 14 my mother brought me to the office and started showing me how to type orders, and file invoices and answer phones. Mom and I ran the office and sales, while my father and a couple of hired salesmen took to the road and set up territories to cover selling to Mom & Pop Health Food stores across the 11 western states. Twenty-nine years later, I continue to follow my parents’ mission to better human health through by telling people about the miracle of Aloe vera.

My parents built this company Real Aloe on many handshakes and good faith. My father comes from a time where when you took a man for his word. My father was one of the best salesmen you could ever run into, as he believed in what he was selling and believed he could help people with their ailments. To this day some of our long term customers still ask how Frank is doing.

Many years have gone by and of course the business has seen good days and bad as most businesses do. But, through it all my parents remained faithful to what they were doing. No matter how hard the struggle was, they stood by each other and their commitment to make their community healthier.

Unfortunately, nothing stays the same, and one day my mother became very ill. She had numerous surgeries but never really recovered in a deep sense of the word. Mom put up a good fight for a couple of years but eventually lost the final battle. This was hard on the family and even harder on my father. We kept going with the business, but now, for the first time, there were conversations about what we should do when Dad decided to retire. We had discussed selling the business to the owners of the local Aloe vera fields who had a good business relationship with my father. More importantly they knew and respected the integrity on which my Dad built his company.

Then, two years ago on July 31st, 2007 my brother Danny passed away unexpectedly. It was a shock to the entire family. Danny was the oldest sibling and he was a partner in the family business. His skills as a batcher and formulator of the Aloe line were unsurpassed. This was a very difficult time for my father and me. The uncertainty caused great anxiety. What should we do now! It was against everything in me to consider Dad sitting behind a desk alone in the office, a widower and a shadow of his former self, so I went to him and said, “Please Dad, it’s time to sell the business. I need you to retire before you are too old to enjoy the fruits of your labor.”

So, in August 2007 my father contacted the owners of the Aloe vera fields in Imperial Valley, where he was getting his Aloe leaves, and they recommended he contact a sharp business man named Mr. Pete Mountanos who had recently contacted them. Dad took them up on their recommendation and sold our family business to Pete. Pete bought the rights to the Real Aloe name, and agreed to continue processing the Real Aloe products under the name USAloe. I assured my dad that I would stay on with the company and relocate to the San Diego area from Simi Valley, CA where my whole family lived. I wanted to make sure the transition went smoothly and reassure our customers that we would continue to run the new company in the same manner as my father had built with Real Aloe. I am happy to say that my son, who is also named Frank Mundell, stayed with the company and now oversees the Aloe Vera batching process (the process of extracting the gels from the Aloe vera leaves) and also manages the production crew for US Aloe.

One of the main reasons why my Dad entrusted his business to Pete Mountanos was that because Pete had shown that he is was a creative thinker and an intelligent businessman. Pete had a history of productive and successful business ventures, including guiding the development and sale of key software used in the to produce Microsoft Windows Media Player. Soon after he took the helm at USAloe Pete explored ways to expand the business so it could meet even more health needs of people across the nation.

In summary, USAloe has embraced the things that have remained constant in my life story: nature’s miracle plant Aloe vera, the business integrity that my Mom and Dad practiced, and a clear mission to improve human health.


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USAloe would like to share their beneficial drinks with you. Free samples of their products can be obtained at www.WestCoastAloe.com . A current special that the company is running can be found at www.USAloeSampler.com .