If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Former Main Line Today Power Woman and Lower Merion native Jess Edelstein was born to be an entrepreneur. She’s a problem solver who sees possibilities where others accept the status quo. Case in point: her latest product, Moops (or Moops Lactase Enzyme), breaks from the traditional mold of lactose intolerance solutions.
What is Moops?
Launched in fall 2024, Moops takes a new approach to easing lactose intolerance. Moving away from a chalky pill, Edelstein and her husband, Marc Levy, worked with food scientists to create a product that helps digest lactose and tastes great. Moops comes in bottles that look like eyedroppers and in five different flavors (strawberry milkshake, salted caramel, orange creamsicle, sweet vanilla and unflavored).
Where many lactase pill companies have looked at trying to solve a packaging problem to satisfy their customers, Edelstein looks at it differently. The problem isn’t remembering to take lactase; it’s about getting customers to want to take the pill in the first place.
“I surveyed hundreds of lactose-intolerant people about how they manage their lactose intolerance,” Edelstein says. “Most people don’t want to take the pill. It interrupts the meal. It’s boring, it’s a chore, it’s not something you want to do.”
The intent with Moops is that it tastes so good that you’ll be thinking just as much about taking it as you will about enjoying your milkshake. And coming from this lactose-intolerant writer, the taste lives up to the hype.
How to use it
For curious consumers interested in the product, Edelstein recommends starting with four pumps from a bottle before a meal, either on top of your dairy treat or directly into your mouth.
Each pump contains 2,500 lactase enzyme units, which your gut uses up when digesting lactose. All humans develop lactase naturally, but that production decreases as we age and, for some, halts almost entirely.
If you’re using the recommended dose once daily, it’ll take a consumer a full two months to go through an entire $18 bottle. However, some find they require more or fewer pumps per meal, and there are no known side effects from ingesting too much lactase enzyme. Despite that, Edelstein and Moops suggest no more than 24 pumps (or six doses) a day.
Those four recommended pumps are equal to more than three standard lactase pills, the ones lactose-intolerant individuals often forget.
Edelstein and Levy are lactose intolerant themselves and, before Moops, would simply deal with the adverse consequences of drinking a milkshake or enjoying a pizza when they didn’t remember to take cumbersome lactase medication. That realization helped spur the idea for Moops in the first place.
A mind for innovation
A lifelong innovator, Edelstein had ideas on how she would market Moops. Yet this wasn’t something she could create a prototype for on her own, unlike her last major product, PiperWai.
Back in 2015, Edelstein and a lifelong childhood friend believed there was an untapped market for natural deodorant, specifically one that used activated charcoal to neutralize odors. At the time, it was a struggle to convince consumers to use that type of product on their bodies. Today, however, you’ll find charcoal deodorant at almost every grocery store or mini-mart. So what happened?
The duo went on SharkTank and, even though they never officially made a deal, the product exploded in popularity after the episode aired. As a small, handcrafted artisan brand, they simply didn’t have the manpower to handle the demand and, when other, bigger companies filled the market space for clamoring customers, PiperWai fell behind and never truly recovered.
“I always thought with my work ethic, entrepreneurship would be effortless. It’d be easy. I can do this because I grew up in a really high-pressure environment,” Edelstein observes. “And of course, I wasn’t immune to how hard entrepreneurship is. I was completely arrogant. So all I just say is I learned a lot of the lessons that founders learn in their businesses in my 20s. Many of those lessons I learned the hard way.”
A bright future for Moops
With Moops, Edelstein is prepared for what entrepreneurship entails. She has built a solid foundation for her company before trying to expand so, when Moops does grow, it will be slowly, and each step will be carefully considered.
Moops is available to order via the brand’s website and will soon be up for purchase on Amazon. After that, perhaps it will pop up in mom-and-pop brick-and-mortar stores or be licensed for sale in coffee shops or creameries. The sky is the limit, but Edelstein and Moops will get there on a controlled flight as they enjoy the ride.
Related: Where to Grab a Great Pizza in Philadelphia’s Western Suburbs
