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Nature's Path Foods, From Independent Roots To Number One

Nature's Path Foods, from Independent Roots to Number One

Photo Provided By Nature's Path Foods

Caught up in the ostensible romance of war, Arjan Stephens' grandfather, Rupert Stephens, lied about his age to join more than 650,000 Canadians and Newfoundlanders to fight in WWI. He was 16, a sensitive songwriter.

But, romantic, the trenches of Belgium and France were not. Out of his battalion of 1,000 men, says Arjan, only Rupert and a single other soldier survived—two among the 66,000 Canadian service-members who perished in the war.

Rupert Stephens came home to his native Vancouver Island, suffering what at the time people called "shellshock."

He found solace and healing for his trauma (which we now understand as PTSD) on a small, family berry farm and produce stand. There he committed to organic farming, which is synonymous with healthy soil. For Rupert, that meant employing a novel combination of sawdust amassed from the many mills on the island, and kelp and seaweed from the local beaches, which he collected with his son, Arran Stephens.

"Always leave the soil better than you found it," Rupert instructed his son. In turn, Arran would guide his son, Arjan, with that same mantra.

In Rupert's farms' unique milieu, earthworms thrived. The worms came up to feed through the layers of seaweed and sawdust spread between the rows of strawberries and raspberries. "They would eat that, and go back down, and they would actually plow the soil for him," says the grandson, Arjan Stephens, now president of Nature's Path Foods. "It was an earthworm paradise. And, he didn't have to use heavy equipment."

The Trailhead is Cleared

Fast forward more than half a century from the Great War. "Growing up, my parents [Arran and Ratana Stephens] opened the first vegetarian restaurant back in 1967," says Arjan. "My dad just had $7 CAD in capital and a $1,500 CAD bank loan." Soon after, they opened "one of Canada's first natural food stores in 1971."

The couple founded Nature's Path in 1985 out of the back of one of their restaurants. For pocket money, young Arjan washed dishes and bused tables there. When the family started the first certified cereal factory in Canada in 1989, "it was tough," says Arjan. "I remember my mom and dad really struggling to make a go of it. And, of course, we all had to work, whatever it was, putting bags of cereal into boxes."

Arjan later interned in every department of the family business, and after getting his Bachelor's in History from Queen's University, and an MBA from Illinois Institute of Technology, he joined the company full time, eventually rising to EVP.

In 2023, he took over from his mother, Ratana, as president.

Today, Nature's Path has grown into North America's largest certified organic breakfast and snack food company. A Big Dog in a medium-sized sector, it's not done growing.

Nature's Path Foods, from Independent Roots to Number One

Photo Provide By Nature's Path Foods

Giants Want to Invade the Garden

With hundreds of SKUs, the Richmond, BC company's cereal might be the best known of its offerings, with wide availability in grocery stores.

The enterprise runs four interconnected brands: Nature's Path, EnviroKidz, Love Crunch, and Que Pasa Mexican Foods, the latter of which is a leading Canadian organic tortilla chip company – gluten free, nut free, and all vegan – with Arjan Stephens as its president.

Still privately held and family owned, still fiercely independent, and still rooted in the principles of organic farming, sustainability, and health championed by Rupert Stephens.

"Our big hairy audacious goal is to be a trusted name for organic foods in every home," says Arjan Stephens. "But, we have long ways to go in the United States. We have more penetration in Canada, and sell to fifty different countries. We just think there's so much more to have in terms of growing that vision. And we want to make organic accessible to everyone, not just people who shop in fancy food stores—accessible even to people utilizing food banks."

In fact, the company reports, in the last 14 years, Nature's Path has donated more than $41 million USD in food and cash to local food banks, charities, and likeminded environmental partners. In 2022 alone, it donated $4.5 million USD.

"I think our consumers recognize our commitments [to sustainability and social consciousness]," says Stephens. "I think another way it's really manifested for us is that a number of large multinational food companies have been buying up organic food companies of medium size to larger size. And we're one of the few remaining ones that are left, still independent, because it's more than just making a profit for us."

"We want to support all of our stakeholders, our team members, our farmers that work with us, all our consumers—and we think we can do that by being independent."

Yet, Stephens concedes that "It's a big challenge to go up against these big behemoths who have really strong distribution and sophisticated ways of getting to the market. But we beat them with agility, and with authenticity, I think."

For Nature's Path, agility sometimes takes the form of strategic acquisitions. It has capitalized on an opportunity occasioned by the recent inflationary period to buy smaller organic food brands that it could help grow. In 2023, it bought Love Child Organics, a Canada-centric brand which specializes in baby food, to expand the brand throughout North America and internationally. This followed Nature's Path's move to acquire a majority stake in Anita's Organic Mill in 2021. Nature's Path is helping the Canadian organic flour and grain product company, also to expand it in Canada, as well as launch in the US.

Slow & Steady Market Penetration, Always Starting with Quality

As a prime example of its philosophy and execution of getting products to market, Stephens points to Nature's Path's suite of Love Crunch granola products.

One of its bestselling lines, Love Crunch started as a party favor for Arjan and his wife, Dr. Rimjhim Stephens' wedding. The boxes of granola were tied to the Stephens' request for guests to donate money to good causes, rather than giving it to the couple.

"We were just so overwhelmed by the gifts that they gave the communities on our wedding day," says Arjan, and the guests were so impressed with the granola, that the couple was inspired to take it to market. "The buyer at Whole Foods loved it and convinced us to launch it. And we said, 'Well, if we're going to launch it, we want to do a giving-back component as well.'"

"So, we helped support the Whole Planet Foundation with the first launch of Love Crunch, supporting women entrepreneurs in the developing world in starting their own businesses through microcredit loans. And a lot of these women bought a goat or a sewing machine and were able to generate some income to help send their children to school or save up money for medical emergencies and so and so forth," Stephens recalls.

"Love Crunch quickly became one of our top-selling granola products and is still today. Now we have seven different flavors of Love Crunch and every year, we support food banks through donations [e.G., through the Bite4Bite foundation].

One of the first and longest-lasting initiatives created to fulfill the brand's mission of giving, the program has donated more than $27.6 million in food to food banks since 2010.

Nature's Path Foods, from Independent Roots to Number One

Photo Provided By Nature's Path Food

More Give-Backs

Nature's Path is committed to donating $727,000 USD to organic, community gardens impacted by food insecurity through its Gardens for Good grant program. The brand is already more than halfway there, having donated $447,000 USD to 74 gardens across North America.

In addition, for more than a decade, Nature's Path has hosted "foodraisers" in the communities where team members live and work, to help raise food and funds for local food banks and elementary schools. These events have raised more than $2 million worth of food to date. This year, the brand has pledged to match 1 pound of organic food for every $1 donation to its food bank partners across North America.

Nature's Path also donates a portion of EnviroKidz sales to organizations around the world that help save vulnerable and endangered animals. Since 2002, Nature's Path has raised $4.2 million USD to help these endangered species.

More Bold Goals & Achievements

In 2022, Nature's Path supported more than 92,800 acres of organic farmland and its farmers, using innovative climate-friendly practices to protect people and the planet.

The brand kept an area the size of Philadelphia free from 17,800 tonnes of synthetic fertilizers equaling the weight of 80 Boeing 747 airplanes and 230 tonnes of toxic pesticides equivalent to the weight of 34 African Elephants.

As part of the brand's zero-waste certification and commitment to reduce its impact, Nature's Path diverted 22+ million pounds of waste from landfills in Canada and the US in 2022, resulting in a 94 percent diversion rate, the company reports. That's the equivalent of the weight of 50 Boeing 747s.

In 2022, the brand's Blaine, WA plant sent 2.8 million gallons of wastewater to an anaerobic biodigester which creates renewable energy: The company operates with zero waste, says Stephens.

Every year Nature's Path chooses 100 percent renewable energy for its Canadian and U.S. Operations. In 2022, this had a similar impact to growing 131,000 trees for 10 years or removing 1,700 cars off the road for one year, says the company.

Worms to Riches: Reflecting on Rupert

What would grandfather Rupert Stephens think if he could see what Nature's Path's staff of 725 have accomplished of late? Would anything surprise him?

"Yeah," says Arjan. "I think he would've been surprised about just how genetically modified organisms have truly infiltrated every aspect of the food chain, and how organic is really that bulwark against GMO technology."

Through the University of Victoria, the Stephens family has donated $25,000 to create undergraduate and graduate student awards that support research in an area related to organic food, sustainable food systems, community and agricultural development, food security, or environmental stewardship in agriculture. They want to keep Rupert's innovative eye on the prize.

Rupert would likely find himself surprised by the scale of Nature's Path's success, says Arjan. "Because we had just a very small berry farm on Vancouver Island. What he and other organic pioneering farmers were able to develop and create over the years. To see how big it's become because of the Green Revolution that took all these armament chemicals and turned them into fertilizer and other sorts of nitrogen fertilizers to 'help' with conventional farming." Surprised at the extent to which all those weapons of war continue to wage war on people and the planet through conventional farming.

From Rupert Stephens' original experiments with earthworms, Arjan reflects, "to an $80 billion dollar worldwide organic food industry."

If you'd like to dive deeper with more purpose-led companies like Nature's Path Foods, check out the Lead with We podcast here, so that you too can build a company that transforms consumer behavior and our future.

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Grant Hill: 'Dr. King Knew That Progress Is Not Sustainable Unless It Solves What Is Systemic'

Published January 15, 2024

The following speech was delivered at the Duke Martin Luther King Jr. Commemoration Sunday in Duke Chapel. More on the MLK commemoration can be found on Duke Today.

It is good to be home. It is an honor to be with you all and humbling to speak in our magnificent chapel on a Sunday.

One of my earliest memories is of a Sunday afternoon with my parents.

When my dad was playing in the NFL, my mom and I would often wait for him outside the locker room at the old RFK Stadium in Washington.

As we walked down the tunnel, I heard people screaming after my dad, begging for his autograph. I remember being scared at all the yelling. I turned to him and asked, "Who were those people?"

He said, "They're fans."

I was three or four years old, and that was the first time I'd ever heard that word used that way: fans. I didn't know it could mean something other than the machine that kept us cool in the summer. I remember that moment because I had never seen such intense passion before.

Remember: this was years before I'd walk into Cameron.

What is that passion? It's something we often see in sports, but also in every walk of life. It's a natural outlet for a most basic need: to belong. To connect. To find our people.

I've always loved sports — not just because I loved playing the game, but because they're a mirror of our society. They help us find an identity and let us come together around something shared. Think of the way you talk about the Blue Devils. What word do you use? It's probably not "They." It's probably "We."

From the court, or on the sideline, or in the stands, I've looked around at big crowds and have seen time and again what binds us so powerfully: love for our own tribe. And yes, it can get intense. I mean, we call ourselves the Crazies for a reason.

This passion is a good thing. Tribalism isn't always a bad word. It can bring out the best in us: our loyalty. Our sense of responsibility to one another. Our willingness to sacrifice for the common good. I felt it for the first time in that tunnel with my dad.

I felt it over four special years playing for Duke, where people from different colors and classes found common ground in their love for our team.

I've seen the same dynamic in every arena around the NBA, and as I've traveled around the world with USA Basketball.

These days, I feel it in my other full-time job: as a soccer dad. Just last week, my daughter was playing in a tournament in Florida. I found myself standing next to parents from different backgrounds and experiences, people I might never otherwise cross paths with. Each of us were pumping our fists at the same good shots and shaking our heads at the same bad calls, each of us knowing how much we'll miss it when our kids move on.

At times, of course, we also know that this kind of tribalism — in sports and life — can bring out our worst.

Think about it this way: how many of you would feel differently about your afternoon if you knew you were spending it not in this chapel, but in Chapel Hill? That feeling you're feeling right now, just hearing those words? That's tribalism. And it's human nature.

A few years ago, researchers found that people were more likely to help a stranger in need who was wearing their favorite team's jersey than those wearing the shirt of their rivals. It's the same instinct that drives us to choose our news or social circles, isolating ourselves among those who share our views, confirming what we already believe, and deepening our identity as members of a tribe.

We've all done it.

"With everything happening in the world, in America, in Durham, we have a responsibility to repair. On this day set aside to honor Dr. Martin Luther King's vision, we confront a fierce urgency to fix what's broken. But we cannot come together to do that work until we talk honestly about the divisions that push us apart."

Grant Hill

Standing here in this church, I can confess that I regret the times I've so quickly defaulted to division. You might remember an ESPN documentary about the Fab Five, the University of Michigan's basketball team. In the film, one of those players called out Duke for not recruiting people like him.

He said that Duke only recruited — these are his words — "Black players that were Uncle Toms."

He was talking about me. I was furious. I was offended. And I punched back by writing a long public letter defending my parents' work ethic, my education, and my pride in my identity as a Black man.

With more than a decade of hindsight, I can see that I soothed my bruised ego, but I didn't do anything to heal a real problem, like the systemic inequalities at the heart of the point he was making. It turns out that ties might bind us, but tribes can blind us.

With everything happening in the world, in America, in Durham, we have a responsibility to repair. On this day set aside to honor Dr. Martin Luther King's vision, we confront a fierce urgency to fix what's broken. But we cannot come together to do that work until we talk honestly about the divisions that push us apart.

Everyone here knows that division is one of the main characters in the century-old story of Duke and Durham. Strong feelings about development, disparities, and diversity have festered for decades. And regardless of race, we've all felt uneasy just walking down these streets.

My roommate and teammate, Antonio Lane, went to an all-Black public high school in Mobile, Ala. Duke was a bit of a culture shock for him. So we spent a lot of time off-campus. One of the things Black basketball players heard the most in Durham was, "I hate Duke, but I like you guys." The student body was — and still is — often resented as carpetbaggers. I was one of those out-of-towners. In the cafeteria on campus, the joke was that the person serving you your food was a Carolina fan. And towering far taller than its modest height, the wall on East Campus was a symbol of the divide between the students and the citizens of Durham.

That's part of why the "Uncle Tom" insult struck a nerve — because it touched on a real tension that exists here.

It wasn't always this way. Durham was once a Black Wall Street. North Carolina Mutual, the Black-owned insurance company, was born here more than a century ago. No less than W.E.B. DuBois marveled at the Black entrepreneurship in Durham, calling it "precisely the opposite spirit" of other, more segregated Southern cities. And he credited much of the tolerance and opportunity he saw to the presence of this school.

Today, credit is due all around for the housing initiatives Duke has led in Durham, as well as its economic development plans, community outreach programs, educational partnerships, and social-impact projects. I know the scars and skepticism are real. I concede that none of these efforts on their own are stronger than generations of mistrust, tension and tribalism, even as they are part of the long path to progress.

But if Durham's renaissance is going to be real, it has to be about more than booming businesses or hot restaurants. Although I will say: As someone who ate a lot of meals downtown in the early nineties, the fact that the New York Times has profiled Durham's culinary scene is all the evidence I'll ever need that change is possible.

Dr. King knew that progress is not sustainable unless it solves what is systemic — that peace, as he wrote, is more than "merely the absence of tension."

So to fulfill our responsibility to repair, we have to change the way we see each other — which means changing how we see ourselves, and the tribe to which we belong. Many of today's DE&I efforts are trying to do just that, and I'm encouraged that they're a part of so many schools, businesses, and communities. Long before my late mother served as a Duke trustee, she worked for Cliff Alexander – a warrior for diversity and inclusion, and the Secretary of the Army in the 1970s. That meant that he was the person responsible for appointing our generals.

One year, when they were given a pool of potential promotions, he and mom noticed something missing: there wasn't a single candidate of color to be a general in an Army that was 40 percent African American. Secretary Alexander and mom pushed the Army to find more qualified candidates. As a result, several names were added to the list. One of those names was Colin Powell.

The heart of DE&I is simply to ensure that more people get a fair chance. I applaud President Price, who has been a consistent advocate for diversity and inclusion at Duke. But as soon as we start talking about DE&I, or affirmative action, or representation, we all know what's coming next. Because every time someone opens the door of progress, others push back with force, trying to close it.

To a certain segment of the population, diversity and inclusion means settling for something inferior. That's disheartening and it hurts. The backlash is troubling, and it's based on a cynical, false premise. The truth is that no one is taking anyone's seat at the table. We're adding more chairs to it. At the end of the day, we're bringing together different personalities, perspectives, and experiences. Any kind of diversity enhances our ability as a company, as a school, or as a team.

Coach K taught me early on: you don't assemble a team of people who all do the same thing. He would compare it to a music recital, and say: to put on a good performance, you need a piano mover, a piano tuner, and a piano player. You need all three.

Yes, our basketball teams had a bunch of out-of-towners. But we won in part because Coach K didn't put five piano players on the court. My teammates came from rural New York, the California coast, inner-city D.C., and suburban Texas. My teammates were Black and they were white. We saw each other in our full humanity. And together, we became champions.

"Our tribe doesn't have be loyal to one party or another, but to the same country. Our tribe doesn't have to be defined by our race, but by our shared values and goals: to provide for our families, educate our kids, enjoy health, and find fulfillment."

Which leads me to the big question we should ask ourselves on this MLK Day: Does our tribalism define us — or do we define our tribe?

Dr. King didn't ask us to resist our innate instincts.

When the Civil Rights movement inspired us to overcome, it didn't pretend we could overcome our need for community. No, Dr. King touched the souls of so many people in such a profound way because he instead challenged everyone to change our definition of how big our tribe is and who belongs in it.

We don't have to limit our tribe to only town or only gown. We belong to the same proud community. Our tribe doesn't have be loyal to one party or another, but to the same country. Our tribe doesn't have to be defined by our race, but by our shared values and goals: to provide for our families, educate our kids, enjoy health, and find fulfillment.

When Dr. King came to Durham in 1960, just days after the Greensboro sit-ins, he stood at a pulpit not far from here and encouraged more white people to join the movement against segregation. Why? Because, as he told them, "the tensions in race relations in the United States today are not tensions between white and Black people; they are tensions between justice and injustice, between light and darkness."

Three years later, my dad was there on the Mall for the March on Washington, and he has told me often about the joy he felt that day.

When my dad went down to D.C. From his home in segregated Baltimore, he saw things he'd never seen before: white folks and Black folks from all over the country holding hands, linking arms – one tribe dreaming together. He says the experience was so profound that he truly thought discrimination would disappear the next day.

We know that it's not that easy. But we've marched slowly forward, in no small part because Dr. King reminded us that repair begins with redefining. Being accepted into someone else' circle can be hard. We can't control what's in another's heart. But it is fully in our power to accept someone else into ours. That's up to us.

"We've marched slowly forward, in no small part because Dr. King reminded us that repair begins with redefining. Being accepted into someone else' circle can be hard. We can't control what's in another's heart. But it is fully in our power to accept someone else into ours."

Remember that research about the fans who would more quickly help the strangers wearing their favorite team's jersey? Well, that study found something else, too: when people thought of themselves as sports fans, and not just fans of one team, they were eager to lend a hand to others, even supporters of their rivals. Enlarging our understanding of who we consider to be one of us changes the way we walk through the world.

Redrawing the boundaries around our chosen tribe might sound like a lot of work. We might wake up some mornings without the patience or energy to open our minds or arms. Centuries of systemic injustices have left real wounds. Decades of disconnect have made this school and this city feel far away from one another.

But the path to progress starts with choices we make every day. If I had another shot to respond to that "Uncle Tom" insult, I would do it so differently.

I hope I would see the person who made that comment and remember that he and I are far more alike than not. Two young Black men in America, both of us 6-foot-8 small forwards born just months apart, battling on the same courts to win titles for schools that mean the world to us.

If I could do it all over again, I would have responded in a way that made clear: it's nothing but love. Or maybe I would have taken my own advice from the letter I ended up writing — "to think before we act, to pause before we speak" — and said nothing at all.

Today, each of us would do well to pause and think of someone who in our life, or in our community, we have assigned to a different tribe. And then we can ask ourselves: Are we sure we got it right?

At the start of this school's second century, that is one small way Duke and Durham can continue the worthy work of repair and recapture the spirit that DuBois saw. And instead of making the space between us wider, we will widen the circle around us.

When we heed Scripture's lesson to love our neighbors as ourselves …

when we heed Dr. King's calls for compassion and conscience …

more of us will reap the rewards of loyalty and community …

that a shared identity inspires.

What better day to start than today?

Thank you.

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