Harvest Innovations started out as a soy ingredient manufacturer. But the company has adjusted in response to public interest and increasing research showing the importance of healthy eating.
“The nexus between food and health in general in the past three or four decades . . . has heightened tremendously,” Wijeratne said. “We looked at what opportunities there are in this particular climate that educated and informed consumers can be interested in. That is when we went in the direction of nonchemical, organic, non-GMO ingredients.”
Wijeratne said small companies “must have a niche to be profitable—a niche where we have the freedom of movement—and we found mega food companies have interest in what we do.”
Harvest Innovations’ interest in soybeans will not go away, Wijeratne said. But “there is a segment of the market that wants to be nonsoy. We have to have an answer to high protein, nonsoy.”
This article originally appeared in the Spring 2015 edition of CIRAS News. You can find the rest of this issue and more of CIRAS News on our website.
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