Cereal and snack food brand, Nature’s Path Organic Foods, recently acquired Canadian organic baby food and kids snack brand, Love Child Organics. Strategy reached out to Arjan Stephens, Nature’s Path president to see how the move fits its broader business goals.

What kind of creative positioning can we expect from Love Child post merger?

Post-acquisition, Love Child Organics will continue to stay true to its mission of providing nutrient-rich, organic food for babies and toddlers. We plan to leverage the existing strengths of Love Child Organics including being Clean Label Certified, while infusing the solid principles and experience of Nature’s Path, further empowering parents in their children’s nutrition journey. By entering this market, we have the opportunity to serve a wider range of consumers with the Nature’s Path family of brands. We know that parents are increasingly seeking organic and healthy options for their young ones and are willing to make the investment to ensure that their babies are eating food without the use of pesticides, herbicides, and GMOs.

How important do you foresee the children’s/toddlers side of the business being?

The baby food market is valued at $499M in Canada and $8.5B in the U.S. and is a natural entry point for families into organics. By entering this market, we have the opportunity to serve a wider range of consumers with the Nature’s Path family of brands. The Love Child Organics brand and its highly trusted portfolio of baby food and children’s snacks perfectly aligns with our commitment to making organic food more accessible for all.

We keep hearing about shrinking centre aisle. How has Nature’s Path continued to stay relevant in the cereal category?

Nature’s Path Organic Foods consistently stands out in the organic cereal category, anchored by our enduring commitment to our original mission – to always leave the earth better than we found it.

The authenticity and quality of our products, together with our dedication to innovation, enables us to fulfill the growing demand by Canadians for healthier and eco-friendly choices.

Post-pandemic, we’ve observed a significant increase in Canadians gravitating towards healthier and organic food options. Canadians are more discerning and highly informed, making consumer education a vital part of our approach. By being transparent about our ingredients, our commitment to sustainable practices, and our unwavering dedication to regenerative organic farming practices, we ensure our consumers are well-informed about the products they choose, thereby fostering trust and reinforcing our relevance in the cereal category.

How does the brand compete with the likes of General Mills and Kellogg, which have very deep pockets and marketing budgets?

As a family-owned company, we have a distinct advantage in that our mission and values guide every decision we make. Our commitment to health, the environment, organic integrity, and making high quality organic products resonate deeply with consumers. While we cannot not match the advertising budgets of larger corporations, we’ve developed an innovative content strategy to engage and connect with our consumers.

Our focus is to get in front of a diverse, culturally relevant and younger audience, by tapping into relevant conversations, and we do so in a way that is authentic – to our brand values, mission, and the audiences we’re working to reach. We’re adopting a “video-first” approach and are actively collaborating with influencers and other key partners, who have become trusted voices for consumers. These efforts are crucial given the growing awareness and discernment among consumers about greenwashing and inauthentic storytelling.

In today’s market, many consumers are more trusting of influencers and smaller brands, like ours, that prioritize a triple bottom line approach. Our strategy is not just about competing, it’s about cultivating trust and showing up authentically for our consumers.

Is there a set of expectations that NP innovates as regularly as the big cereal players?

As a pioneer in the organic food industry, innovation is deeply woven into the fabric of Nature’s Path. Our consumers expect us to consistently deliver high-quality, nutritious, and flavorful products, and we work tirelessly to exceed these expectations. Being a family-owned business competing against giant the conventional cereal players, disruptive product innovation is one element where we can differentiate ourselves and we currently have innovation as a key business priority. But for us at Nature’s Path, innovation extends beyond our products into sustainable packaging and regenerative organics – it’s our duty to do this work for our planet and
for humanity.

Has the brand done any recent packaging innovations, and can you share with strategy readers the importance of point-of-sale/last mile of the shopping journey?

At Nature’s Path Organic Foods, sustainability is not just a buzzword; it’s a fundamental part of our philosophy. In fact, 90% of our packaging is recyclable by weight, and we are actively pursuing our goal of ensuring all of our packaging is reusable, recyclable, or compostable by 2025.

All of the cardboard and paperboard we purchase is FSC certified, printed with vegetable-based inks, and is 100 percent recyclable. These initiatives are part of our commitment to reduce our environmental footprint and contribute to a more sustainable future.

We understand the pivotal role of packaging in the last mile of the shopping journey. Beyond simply protecting the product, it serves to communicate our brand’s commitment to sustainability and the high-quality organic foods we offer. Through our packaging, we aim to connect with consumers who are increasingly seeking out environmentally responsible choices.

How has Nature’s Path’s marketing changed/evolved from COVID to now?

The COVID-19 pandemic reaffirmed the relevance of Nature’s Path’s inherent commitment to our triple bottom line – People, Planet, and Profit – and our dedication to fostering holistic health. Our actions during this challenging time were not so much a shift in our approach but an opportunity to amplify what we have always stood for – authenticity, transparency, and a dedication to making quality organic products.

While we have consistently championed healthier and more sustainable choices, we did notice an increased interest in healthy eating and organic foods among new consumers during the pandemic. As a result, our messaging strategy evolved to meet the rising consumer demand for more product-focused information. We therefore shifted our messaging to emphasize the organic and nutritional benefits of our products and ingredients.

This change wasn’t about capitalizing on a trend, but about addressing our consumers’ evolving needs for healthier choices.

The transparency and authenticity we are known for gained further significance, as consumers were keen to understand how brands were responding to the crisis. We embraced this opportunity to deepen our dialogue with our customers, openly sharing the challenges we were navigating.

Post pandemic some of these concerns have shifted because of inflation and we’ve seen a huge growth in private label. As a result, we have had to adjust our strategy to get to market with more targeted and strategic messaging in a quicker timeframe. The aim is to educate consumers on our commitment to fueling healthy communities as well as the inherent value of supporting and investing in a triple bottom line business like ours. A.I. has been a huge part of driving efficiencies in getting more strategic content to market more quickly. It not only enables us to swiftly create and distribute content, but to also respond more efficiently to consumer feedback and shopping behavior changes. This will continue to be critical to competing in a market that is oversaturated in greenwashing and misinformation.

What are consumers keeping top of mind from their cereals right now, is it whole grains or protein primarily, and how does the brand stay focused in the face of constantly changing dietary habits/fads?

When it comes to cereal right now, the main considerations for consumers looking for a healthy option include high fiber, low sugar, high protein, and grain type – so we always have these top-of-mind when it comes to our products. We keep a close pulse on consumer preferences to ensure we are always meeting their expectations. Beyond this, our commitment to delivering organic, non-GMO, and nutritious food will always be our North Star that guides every decision we make.

Has the brand run any retail/shopper marketing campaigns lately?

While we have not initiated new campaigns recently, we have been active participants in cause-related marketing initiatives that resonate with our brand values. For example, as part of the Toonies 4 Tummies campaign by The Grocery Foundation, Nature’s Path has played an active role. We not only donated our organic food products to the cause, but also helped to raise awareness of the campaign through our various channels. By promoting the campaign and encouraging our consumers to participate by donating at the checkout, we were able to help secure nutritious meals for children in communities across Canada.