Published on: 05 December 2022
The winner of this year’s humanizing growth championship is Rupen Desai, CMO at DOLE Sunshine Company, a company serving humanity with nutritious products, straight from the goodness of the earth. Over the last few years, with the help of Rupen, the company has transformed its business model to create sustainable and circular innovations that drive prosperity for people, the planet, and the company.
“Two observations led to the reinvention of our business model. First, unhealthy food has become far more available, affordable, and accessible than nutritious foods. We need to correct this inequality. Second, prosperity that comes at the cost of people and/or the planet needs to change. We need people, the planet, and prosperity to thrive interdependently together – never one, at the cost of the other.
Whilst we have been advocating nutrition equality through our malnutrition labels work that uses the ubiquitous ‘facts’ label – we have, also, been busy upcycling fruit waste to innovate new products in beverages, snacking, and more.
Furthermore, we have leveraged the power of partnerships to gain further momentum on this journey. Through our partnership with Ananas Anam, we are able to turn pineapple leaves that were long considered a waste by-product, into a vegan and sustainable leather substitute for many brands like Nike, H&M, Hugo Boss, and others. The farmers get additional income, and we generate new business opportunities and there is less damage to the environment from the wasted, rotting leaves. That’s people, planet, and prosperity, thriving, interdependently together.
In most companies, there is a disconnect between the language of growth and the language of sustainability. Together, we will have to find an evolved language of growth, one that is humanized, one that is regenerative, one where every time we grow, we are able to do it with a positive impact on the people, the stakeholders, and a better impact on the planet.”
Inspired by Rupen Desai, IRG100 participant 2022, CMO at Dole Sunshine Co.
