This is the story of how a family took the seed of an organic legacy and built it into one of North America’s leading organic cereal companies
Nature’s Path Foods was founded in Vancouver BC in 1985 by Arran and Ratana Stephens. The company started out, and still is today, a passionate, family-run company that makes delicious, organic breakfast and snack foods. The seed for Nature’s Path was planted way back in the 1950s when Arran Stephens was growing up on his family’s second-generation organic berry farm. Arran Stephens reminisces, “In the 1950s, my father, a former officer in WWI and an early organic farmer, advised his young son (me) to always improve the soil. His vision inspired the healing-the-earth guiding philosophy behind Nature’s Path Foods – to Always Leave the Earth Better Than We Found It.”
In 1967, Arran returned from seven months in India studying with his revered Mentor and with only CA$ 7 and a modest loan, began The Golden Lotus, Canada’s first vegetarian restaurant. “The restaurant became wildly popular. In 1968-1969, I returned to India for another six months, was blessed to have an arranged (!) marriage to Ratana and together we returned to Canada. In 1971, I started Canada’s first large natural foods supermarket, and in 1985, Ratana and I began Nature’s Path Foods from the back of our 120-seat vegetarian restaurant, setting forth to make delicious 100% organic food accessible to all. Along the way, we were blessed with four children, two of whom – Arjan and Jyoti , are actively involved in our family business today,” he shares.
When Organic became mainstream
Nature’s Path was the very first organic cereal manufacturer in Canada to attain third-party organic certification. Arran recalls, “We were considered to be a little crazy to take on the breakfast food giants, but I always had an unshakable belief that healthy organic foods would someday become mainstream, and I wanted to be there when that happened.” Why Organic? Because organic food makes perfect sense, he believes, especially since mainstream chemical agriculture dumps millions of tons of toxic, environmentally damaging chemical pesticides and fertilisers annually upon the Planet, wreaking untold harm. Further, these chemicals enter the food chain and create illnesses and cancers. The depletion of soil fertility caused by chemical fertilisers reduces both taste and nutritional quality of food, whereas in real organic food production, flavour and soil fertility are enhanced.
“As a species, we seem to have forgotten that healthy soil = healthy plants; healthy plants = healthy people and animals; healthy people and animals = healthy planet. Organic farming eliminates all toxic chemicals from production while significantly drawing down carbon from the atmosphere and fixing it in the soil where it belongs, therefore helping to mitigate global warming,” he adds.
The vision and rationale behind organics became crystal clear to Arran and a growing number of scientists, researchers and consumers. The company had to overcome a great deal of hurdles and misinformation. It engaged heavily in education through messaging, countless media interviews and even debating the head of the world’s largest pesticide and GMO company.
From the 1960s until now, Nature’s Path saw a fledgling movement blossom into a US$ 100 billion market that is still growing in double digits. Today, Organics IS mainstream. In rapidly growing numbers, young Gen-Z and Millennials all over the world are embracing both organics and plant-powered eating; they are demanding change from the status quo.
Not without challenges
Arran points out, “One of the main challenges facing the organic movement was, but to a lesser extent now, cost and scale, making the sourcing of ingredients difficult and more costly than conventional. We are now seeing some efficiencies of scaling up Nature’s Path. To help achieve volume and to be more competitive with our non-organic counterparts, we’ve always taken lower margins on our products.”
Speaking about the product line, Ratana says, “We have a wide variety of breakfast and snack products (over 150 items), including granola, cereal, oatmeal, bars, biscuits, toaster pastries, tortilla chips, and salsa. All of our products are USDA and Canadian Certified Organic, as well as Non-GMO Project Verified. These are produced in our three state-of-the-art facilities – one in Canada and two in the USA.”
Taking Organic to the next level
The company has also released a limited edition product for Earth Day earlier this year: Nature’s Path Regenerative Organic Certified (ROC) oats. Explaining the term, she adds, “Regenerative Organic agriculture takes organic to a higher level, further helping to restore the soil to its richest and healthiest state, fixing more carbon in the soil where it belongs – not in the atmosphere. We produce our ROC oats on our very own 5,000-acre Legend Organic Farm in Canada – the very first farm to earn the ROC certification from the Regenerative Organic Alliance. We believe that tackling climate change begins with how and what we grow and eat.”
Nature’s Path products are available in over 50 countries across the world, including Australia, Japan, Mexico, S. America and the United Kingdom. Ratana informs, “Our products are not currently available in India, but we believe that everyone should have access to affordable, organic food and we hope to be able to see our products on shelves in India in the future.”
As for future plans, Arran affirms, “We will continue with our vision to leave the Earth better than we found Her. Growing, producing, educating and promoting delicious organic food is at the heart of everything we do. Our aspiration is to continue growing the organic movement, innovating, making delicious and healthy organic food accessible to as many as possible. Beyond organic, we have significant environmental sustainability goals, including zero-waste and for all our packaging to be reusable, recyclable, or compostable by 2025.”
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