How Nature’s Path Pioneered Organic Breakfast Cereal 40 Years Ago

When most organic food brands faced pressure to sell to multinational corporations, Arjan Stephens and his family chose a different path. As President of Nature’s Path Organic Foods, Stephens has helped steer the company his parents founded 40 years ago to become one of the last major independent organic brands in North America. Under his leadership, the company has not only resisted acquisition offers but has built a $40 million food bank donation program that proves purpose and profit can coexist. In this conversation, we explore how Nature’s Path educated consumers on organic food before it was mainstream, the company’s approach to brand architecture and innovation, why staying family-owned matters to their mission, and how they’re using product lines like Love Crunch to address food insecurity.

Dave Knox: I want to start with your journey. Nature’s Path Organic Foods was started 40 years ago by your parents. What inspired them to launch this company?

Arjan Stephens: My dad was a hippie before the hippies existed. So he was a beatnik. He was an artist and explorer. A s an artist, his travels took him to India where he met my mom. T ogether, they came back and started natural food businesses. So, they started the first vegetarian restaurant in Western Canada in 1967, and then, one of the first health food stores that wasn’t just selling pills and tonics, but was selling real healthy food in 1971 in Vancouver, Canada. T hen from there, Nature’s P ath started in 1985. I was born in 1981 myself, and as a kid we always had to work in the restaurant, and we had to do a lot of things to help out with the business. So it was natural as I grew older to join the business after I graduated from university. Nature’s Path was really started with just a simple idea, which was to always leave the soil or the earth better than we found it. T hat’s what my grandfather told my dad growing up on a farm on Vancouver island back in the 40s and 50s.

Knox: Talk about the path of the business and where you’ve taken it. Nature’s Path is still 100% family-owned. Have there been pressures to bring in outside investors or finance growth differently?

Stephens: In the early days, it was really tough. I remember my mom and dad struggling to get the business off the ground. They mortgaged the house seven times. As the business became more successful—because at the time there was no organic food available on store shelves, and we were the first organic certified breakfast cereal brand in the world—a lot of bankers and investors said, “You’re going to get destroyed by big cereal companies like Kellogg’s and General Mills.” None of the bankers were interested in giving a loan, except one. We were very fortunate to get that loan to start the business. Today, many big multinational food companies are very interested in organic foods. We started with this niche, and now they’re all looking to acquire independent organic food brands. There are very few independent organic food brands left on the market, and we’re one of the few remaining. There has been pressure over the years, and we’re very proud to stay independent and family-owned.

Knox: You were the first certified organic brand when that was a word people hadn’t really heard. What was the education process to explain what it meant and why people should care?

Stephens: Our first educational billboards were our packaging. We highlighted what organic meant, and for us, organic means healthier soil free from chemicals, preservatives, artificial flavors and colors—things people take for granted nowadays, but at the time, it was revolutionary. Right on the package, we featured stories of the farmers or stories of ancient grains that nobody had heard of at the time, like quinoa, amaranth, and millet. We talked about how the First Nations or indigenous peoples of North America used these grains and the health benefits behind them. We used our packaging as an educational piece—not only the front, back, and sides, but actually the inside. When consumers took it home, it said, “Look inside to learn more about organic farming and agriculture.” We launched the first organic certified kids cereal in North America, and on the inside, we talked about the gorillas we were saving through our partnership with Dian Fossey and our Choco Chimps product. We discussed Jane Goodall and how you could adopt a chimpanzee. When you don’t have much money for marketing, your packaging—and at the time, the website—had to be different and capture people in those first five seconds as they’re walking down the aisle and say, “Okay, I’m willing to give this upstart disruptive brand a chance.”

Knox: As you built the brand and educated on organic, you had choices to make about innovation and product development. How did you approach that?

Stephens: We looked at how we could make things healthier than what was out there. We knew there were great favorites like Corn Flakes or Rice Krispies. Many times, they used genetically modified ingredients or were naturally gluten-free but weren’t labeled gluten-free because they added molasses or other ingredients contaminated with wheat or gluten. For us, at first it was looking at the main classics. But as we progressed, we started looking at unique ingredients leading the edge with superfoods. We were the first company to use flaxseeds in cereal and granola. It sounds ubiquitous now, but at the time, we went to a scientific conference and learned about omega-3s and brain health and heart health. We looked at chia, which at the time was just known for Chia Pets. We saw that this unique little seed had been consumed by the Incas and people of South America for thousands of years—it’s a super healthy seed. We looked at superfoods like açaí coming out of the Amazon and brought these to our categories in a unique and differentiated way.

Knox: You have a mission that’s your true north. How has that guided what you’ve passed on versus what you’ve leaned into?

Stephens: Our strong foundation is that we’re always organic. We believe in the strength of organic to regenerate the earth. Over the years as we’ve launched products, many of our competitors have been “natural.” Natural doesn’t really mean anything—it can mean whatever the company wants it to mean. Whereas organic has a strong foundation backed by legislation and law. If you break that law around organic and use non-organic ingredients, you can face stiff penalties and even go to jail. For us, organic is the true north. On top of that, we’ve layered fair trade and non-GMO. It goes back to my grandfather. He fought in World War I—lied about his age when he was 16 and fought in the trenches of Belgium and France. He came back with a lot of trauma and found solace through organic farming, getting his hands dirty, and growing things in the soil. That’s where my dad grew up, on a farm on Vancouver Island. My grandfather used to take my dad down to the beaches, and together they collected kelp and seaweed and spread it between the rows of strawberries and raspberries. He told my dad, “Always leave the soil better than you found it.” That’s our guiding principle at Nature’s Path, our mission. That’s why we stay independent and make all of our products organic.

Knox: You hit upon that difference between organic versus natural, and others have unfortunately used words more for buzz than for meaning. How do you talk to consumers about that difference and elevate the category?

Stephens: That’s probably our biggest challenge as the overall organic industry and within our company. There’s so much greenwashing out there. There’s regenerative agriculture, which means taking practices to regenerate the soil in terms of climate practices—maybe not tilling—but if it isn’t organic regenerative, you’re using herbicides, pesticides, and fertilizers that actually do the opposite of regenerative. They’re putting toxic chemicals into the air, water, and our bodies. It’s a big challenge for us as a movement and as a company to educate consumers. I think we do it through our taste. If you taste a really great product and it’s organic, maybe you want to eat it again and make a habit of it. We believe all consumers vote with their forks, knives, and spoons. We want great-tasting products that are healthy and that people will incorporate into their daily lives. We’re proud that some of our products have the highest loyalty rates relative to our competition. It comes down to taste. There are the nutritional macros—proteins, fats, salt, sugar—but where you can marry these functional benefits with great taste is where Nature’s Path has been really successful over the years.

Knox: Earlier you talked about the origin story and being a proudly Canadian business. Recently you’ve been expanding into new markets, particularly the U.S. How did that come to be, and what steps have you been taking?

Stephens: We’ve been proud since the very early days to market and sell our products into the U.S. We were one of the first suppliers to the predecessors of Whole Foods. Whole Foods bought up a lot of little chains throughout the United States on its way to becoming the leader it was. As we look at our growth pattern and where we want to see the brand, we see the United States as a huge opportunity for Nature’s Path. There’s so much population here, so many people eating less healthy foods. Really helping to change habits and make healthy organic food available to all Americans is our goal. We don’t just want to be sold at fancy health food stores and independent stores—we want organic to be available to everyone. That’s also why we’re big supporters of food banks and charities related to food insecurity across North America.

Knox: I want to dive into that commitment to food banks. Especially in today’s environment, food insecurity is an increasing priority. How have you thought about that as a company?

Stephens: My wife and I, when we got married 15 years ago, created a product called Love Crunch. As a favor at our wedding, we gave Love Crunch to all our guests. We created it together—took dark chocolate chunks, added strawberries, raspberries, and granola, and gave it out to friends and family. We asked them to do a gift of giving. Our guests from around the world volunteered—some at soup kitchens, some in community organizations. One friend in Germany handed out tulips at the train station with love notes expressing gratitude. At the end of the wedding, after two days, so many guests said, “This is the most delicious granola. Where can we get it?” We said we had no intention of selling it. Our friends from Whole Foods, one of our buyers, said, “We really want to sell this.” We said if we could partner to launch this product but help people in need, we’d do it. Whole Foods was very gracious in partnering to support their micro-lending and microfinance organization, the Whole Planet Foundation. Together, we helped women entrepreneurs in the developing world start their own businesses with a donation from each box of Love Crunch. After that initial launch, we asked how we could expand this in a bigger way. We decided to support food banks. With every bag of Love Crunch we sell through our Bite4 Bite program, we donate an equivalent amount of food to food banks with a minimum donation of $2 million a year. We’ve just celebrated 15 years of Love Crunch—my wife and I have been married that long—and we’ve hit $40 million in food bank donations through the Love Crunch brand. It’s really exciting to see how many people can get organic food at the food bank, and it’s incredibly important in today’s environment as more people are struggling.

Knox: Building on Love Crunch and that mission, how have you thought about expanding? When do you create a new brand and name versus using the Nature’s Path umbrella?

Stephens: Some of it’s been trial and error. We’ve launched into different categories over the years—some very successful, others that failed. That’s part of innovation and business: learning as you’re doing, because there are so many reasons not to do something. Over the years, we’ve learned that Nature’s Path stands for organic. It stands for breakfast and also snacks as it relates to granola—but granola is 50% eaten for breakfast. We’ve looked to partner and acquire brands that allow us to go into different spaces. We acquired the Que Pasa business close to 13 years ago—it’s the number one organic snack food brand in Canada, and we’re bringing it to the U.S. It doesn’t have the Nature’s Path logo on it except on the back, but it stands as its own pillar for authentically crafted organic tortilla chips. Love Crunch sits very close to my wife and me, so it has strong Love Crunch branding with Nature’s Path endorsement as the master brand. We purchased a small organic baby food company, the number three player in Canada, which has grown to be a strong part of our business: Love C hild Organics. That brand is also endorsed by Nature’s Path. We look at all the product lines and where we might expand. We’ve learned over the years that you can’t push the brand too far. For example, we launched pasta one year, and that didn’t do well. But where we’ve launched oatmeal or granola, those extensions have been much more natural and allow consumers to realize that Nature’s Path stands for strong organic authenticity and delicious taste.

Knox: Where do you see the brand going next?

Stephens: We’re always trying to figure out where we can lead and bring new and exciting things to our consumers—whether that’s new superfoods or responding to trends around GLP-1s and people eating more protein. I think the future is also about fiber—as you eat more protein, people aren’t getting enough fiber. Definitely getting more fiber-full cereals and granola is a big focus for us. People, especially younger consumers, are looking at companies and asking, “What are you doing for our communities? What are you doing for sustainability? How can we know you’re not greenwashing?” For us, where we’ve had success and the most fulfillment as a family who runs this business is tying our products to supporting great initiatives. Love Crunch supports food banks; EnviroKidz supports endangered species and habitat protection. As we continue to move forward, I want to see more causes that we can tie to our products that are authentically helping communities and causes around the world.