Nuns turn to beer, cosmetics and online sales to sustain their convents

Communities of religious sisters are running businesses that combine the Benedictine tradition of "ora et labora" with digital commerce and business management. The ventures range from artisan sweets and cosmetics to beer, along with agricultural and textile projects. The aim is the same in each case: to sustain the convents, preserve their heritage and keep the religious mission going.

Sister Marta González, of the Santa Cruz convent in Sahagún, in the province of León in northwestern Spain, combines contemplative life with a business that has an international reach. She makes artisan sweets, soaps, lip balms and creams, sold through an online shop. She also uses YouTube and TikTok to show daily life in the convent, where she has built up close to 200,000 followers.

Sister Doris Engelhard, a Franciscan at the Mallersdorf monastery in Bavaria, southern Germany, has made a name for herself as a brewmaster. According to L'Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, she brews around 3,000 hectoliters a year.

The nuns of the Maredret monastery have also developed a craft beer to raise money for the upkeep of their convent. They have built the monastery's history and identity into the brand, with recipes that use plants from the convent garden: juniper, coriander and sage.

Business empowerment in Africa

In Africa, the Sisters Blended Value Project is training Catholic religious sisters from several countries in business management, financing, market access and social entrepreneurship. The projects launched so far include farms and various food production ventures.

In Kenya, one group started out making school uniforms. After business training, it won a university contract to produce graduation gowns, which brought in income and created jobs in vulnerable communities.

The Foxford textile tradition and Mother Agnes

The Foxford Woollen Mill in Ireland has been in operation for more than 130 years, through economic downturns and changes in fashion. It was founded by Mother Agnes Morrogh-Bernard, a Catholic nun who believed the answer to poverty was decent employment rather than charity.

Mother Agnes was born on February 24, 1842, in Cheltenham, England, the eldest of 10 children in a well-off Catholic family. She entered the novitiate of the Sisters of Charity in 1863. After teaching in Dublin, she was sent in 1877 to Ballaghaderreen, where she founded schools and a textile business that trained local young people. In 1890 she arrived in Foxford, a community still living with the effects of the Great Famine, intending to ease poverty by creating steady jobs.

Mother Agnes identified two resources: the river Moy, which could supply industrial power, and the plentiful wool of local farmers. Her aim was social before it was commercial. She wanted women to learn useful skills and families to build more secure lives. Despite the difficulties, she set up the Providence Woolen Factory in 1892, which soon became one of Ireland's leading textile suppliers.

Mother Agnes ran the business until her death in 1932. The downturn of the 1980s and changing consumer habits led to bankruptcy in 1987. Joe Queenan, a young accountant, then bought the business and modernized its operations to preserve Foxford's heritage and jobs.

FOXFORD is now a high-end Irish design and lifestyle brand. It still makes blankets and textiles, and it has become a tourist destination that draws more than 130,000 visitors a year.

In Spain, Italy and other European countries, communities of nuns are looking for sources of income as maintenance costs rise and vocations fall. Italian monasteries produce cosmetics, food and farm goods. Some communities have created shared brands so that products from different convents reach the market under a single identity.