Ep. 248 - Dole Packaged Foods' Dr. Lara Ramdin, CIO and Barbara Guerpillon, Head of Ventures on Dole's Venture Fund, Open Innovation & Nutrition

On this week's episode of Inside Outside Innovation, we sit down with two innovators from Dole Packaged Foods, Dr. Lara Ramdin, Chief Innovation Officer and Barbara Guerpillon, Head of Ventures. We talk about Dole's new venture fund, its open innovation initiatives, and how it's tackling global issues from nutrition to sustainability. Let's get started.

Inside Outside Innovation is the podcast to help new innovators navigate what's next. Each week, we'll give you a front row seat into what it takes to learn, grow, and thrive in today's world of accelerating change and uncertainty. Join us as we explore, engage and experiment with the best and the brightest innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneering businesses. It's time to get started.

Interview Transcript with Dole Packaged Foods' Dr. Lara Ramdin, Chief Innovation Officer and Barbara Guerpillon, Head of Ventures

Brian Ardinger:  Welcome to another episode of Inside Outside Innovation. I'm your host, Brian Ardinger. And as always, we have some amazing guests. Today, we actually have two guests coming from all around the world. We have Dr. Lara Ramdin, the Chief Innovation Officer and Barbara Guerpillon, Head of Ventures at Dole Packaged Foods. So welcome to the show. 

Lara Ramdin: Thanks.

Barbara Guerpillon: Glad to be here. 

Brian Ardinger: Excellent. Well, I am so excited to have you both on the show together. The two of you are at the forefront of Dole's transformation and focus on innovation. And so, we wanted to have you on the show to talk about some of the new initiatives that you unveiled in the recent months and why they're so important. How does Dole define innovation? 

Lara Ramdin: Innovation is, it's a very broad term, right? And it can often be overused in our case, it's at all touch points. So, from the farm to the fruit, to the product, to the way the consumer uses it, to the way the consumer disposes it. So, it's actually end to end, innovation can occur them, any of those points.

And that's obviously why we're here because we're trying to broaden our horizons in all of those aspects. It's time that we thought about Innovation beyond just a formulation and a pack. 

Barbara Guerpillon: It's also about innovation in ways of working and Lara and I is a very great example of how we are working on Innovation. It's just different approaches as well to solving problems. 

Brian Ardinger: So, let's talk a little bit about those different types of approaches. One of the things I wanted to talk about is you've unveiled this new Dole Promise. These are six promises that you're making to the world that by 2025 you're going to make some big changes and transformation. So, Lara do you want to talk a little bit about the Dole Promise and what it is all about? 

Lara Ramdin: What's really interesting about Dole and both Barbara and I are new to the company, right? So that's also new for Dole in terms of Innovation, having a Head of Ventures and the Head of Innovation, is that they sort of set their stool out and said, if we're really, really going to make a difference, where we're going to make a difference is by actually closing this nutrition gap, which we see happening all over the world and happening, not just in developing countries, but in developed countries.

And so, it's our mission to make nutrition accessible and affordable. And also, as part of this wider innovation agenda, try and get nutrition to people in different ways. Right? So that's the first thing. That's really the first big promise pillar. 

And then underneath that, we're really striving. For access to sustainable nutrition for 1 billion people. And then also we're looking at our current portfolio and saying, how can we make those better? And how can we take out processed sugar? And how can we take out the things that we know you don't need? Right. And how can we give you the things that we already make in this period school? So that's one big nutrition pillar, 

Brian Ardinger: Barbara, what are your thoughts?

Barbara Guerpillon: I'm specifically looking at reducing our carbon footprint. As Head of Venture, my role is to bring the outside in. Identify technology, startups, and entrepreneur we can work with. And if you look at the massive agenda on reducing carbon footprint, we know, we cannot do it all alone and we need to partner and we have innovators with new technology, and therefore reducing our carbon footprint, we'll start from, it will have to be a closed loop.

It will start from the farms, to our package product, to the way we are shipping the product to the way we are packing them. So, we also have a goal on a zero-footprint based plastic by 2025 in our world packaging, but it's not only on the packaging and so everywhere where there is today for based plastics. It also includes within our farm. So, there is a big interconnectivity between all our Dole Promises, which will be mutually beneficial. We are really looking forward to exploring those partnerships and those new developments with entrepreneurs. 

Lara Ramdin: There's a big recognition Brian that we want systemic change. And if we want systemic change, we can't do it on our own. Right. So actually, we're in this position, and I think Barbara alluded to earlier, because we want to innovate in the way we work. And actually, Dole's saying, hey guys, we can't do this on our own. Come help us. That's already really innovative for us. Right. And I think we are embracing open innovation in its truest form in that way. 

Brian Ardinger: And that leads to my next question. So, you were both new to Dole. I was going to ask, how are these initiatives different from the way Dole approached Innovation in the past? Obviously, you said it's much more open than before. Why do you think this is a different image for Dole and why are you going to go on this path? 

Barbara Guerpillon: I think I'm going to start because my answer is going to be way shorter than Lara's.  One, the Head of Venture and the Venturing Team is a new team, and it hasn't been done before. And I really, really focus on working with startups and young companies. So, the answer is quite easy because this did not exist before. It's a new initiative. It has been launched about a year ago. So that's a simple answer. 

Lara Ramdin: And then building on that. I would say that Dole has been in the past quite traditional about how it focused on Innovation. Right? So, it innovated on what it knew how to do already. And actually, we're expanding our portfolio beyond the canned Pineapple.  And so, we're saying, we want to go beyond that. We know fruit, we are the experts in food, but we want to get fruit and nutrition in fruit and vegetables and plants to people in different ways. How can we do that? 

If we don't know how to do it, let's go and find somebody that can, that's the other part of this sort of innovation continuum that I'm doing, is that person over there can do supplements, sell it. Cause we've just launched supplements. Let's go and work with them to launch fruit-based supplements, for example. So, I think that's why I'm saying it's really open innovation in its truest form.

Brian Ardinger:  That leads to my question, Barbara, about Dole Ventures and I believe you have a ne...