Meet the Brand on a Mission to Change Women’s Lives

This founder and CEO overcame her health struggles with natural remedies, then started Pink Stork to help others do the same.

Pink Stork Founder Amy Suzanne Upchurch did not have easy pregnancies—at least not with her first three children. While her husband was in the military, she was diagnosed with hyperemesis gravidarum, a severe type of nausea and vomiting. “I was juggling moving around the country, being pregnant, living in and out of hospitals; and my husband was gone. It was just a challenging time across every area of my life,” she says. After spending weeks in the hospital, Upchurch, only three months into her first pregnancy, contracted a lifethreatening blood infection. Doctors told her she had 24 hours left to live. Her husband came straight from military training to see her, still in war paint. It felt like a scene from a movie.

Despite the news, Upchurch felt calm. “Such a sense of peace came over me. I thought, ‘No, this isn’t how it ends.’” Faith in God helped her find hope and perspective, and her health battle proved a beginning, not an ending. Fast forward to her fourth pregnancy, and rather than using a “pharmaceutical approach,” she developed a vitamin and mineral regimen with input from her mother, a nurse, to proactively treat her illness. “I had a completely amazing pregnancy. I was chasing three little kids around, and I didn’t have to live in the hospital.” In 2015, the same year her fourth child was born, she launched Pink Stork, the wellness brand for women, to help others find holistic ways to feel better.

INSPIRING HOPE FOR A BETTER TOMORROW

A women-owned and run business, Pink Stork started with solutions for morning sickness and organically expanded to products for all stages of a woman’s life, including vitamins, supplements, gummies, and teas to help with PMS, fertility, pregnancy, menopause, nursing, and overall well-being. Starting small helped the business understand its customers and grow with them as their needs changed, Upchurch says. From the beginning, she focused on profitability and has increased revenue by 100 percent every year. In 2018, she had her fifth child, and another healthy pregnancy, using Pink Stork products.

This year, Pink Stork is No. 26 on the Inc. 5000 Regionals: Florida list, and Upchurch is forecasting continued growth. She plans to release about 50 new products in 2021. More importantly, she is finding new ways to create a sense of community and to connect women to others going through similar challenges. In 2020, Pink Stork created a Customer Obsession division devoted to delighting shoppers and making them feel valued. “We really want customers to understand how much we care about them,” she says. Her team of 65 employees feels the same, including her husband, who joined Pink Stork as COO in 2017. Upchurch sees her family and her business as gifts from God, and treats her company and customers with reverence. “We are not just selling products. We are changing women’s lives by giving them hope and inspiring them for a better tomorrow.”