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About 19 million children under 5 around the world suffer from severe acute malnutrition every year. This life-threatening condition kills 400,000 of themthats one child every 10 seconds. These numbers are staggering, especially because a lifesaving treatment has existed for nearly three decades: ready-to-use therapeutic food. Nutriset, a French company, was founded by Michel Lescanne. He was one of two scientists who invented this product in 1996. A sticky peanut butter paste branded Plumpy’nut, its enriched with vitamins and minerals and comes in packets that require no refrigeration or preparation. Healthcare professionals were quickly convinced of its promise. What was harder to figure out was how to manufacture as many packets as possible while cutting costs. In 2008, ready-to-use therapeutic food producers like Nutriset charged $60 for a box of 150 packetsthe number needed to treat one severely malnourished child for the six to eight weeks needed for their recovery. In a study we published in the Journal of Management Studies in October 2024, we explained how the international agencies, nongovernmental organizations, activists, and for-profit companies involved in the products distribution managed to resolve a public controversy over the use of Nutrisets patent and its for-profit business model. Contrary to the expectations of activists and many humanitarian NGOs, this for-profit company managed to reduce its prices down to $39 per box of Plumpy’nut packets by 2019 and keep them consistently lower than any nonprofit or for-profit competitors could, all the while enforcing its patent rights. We interviewed Jan Komrska, a pharmacist then serving as the ready-to-use therapeutic food procurement manager at UNICEF, the United Nations agency for children; Tiddo von Schoen-Angerer, a pediatrician who was leading the access to medicines campaign at Doctors Without Borders, a medical charity; and Thomas Couaillet, a Nutriset executive. We also studied documents issued over the course of a decade to find out why this companys unusual approach to intellectual property protection was so successful. Helping franchisees in low-income countries get started Nutriset and humanitarian organizations disagreed at the start over how to proceed with the production of ready-to-use therapeutic food. Doctors Without Borders at first accused Nutriset of behaving like a big drugmaker, shielding itself from competition by aggressively enforcing its patents to charge excessively high prices. The nongovernmental organization demanded that Nutriset allow any manufacturer to make its patented packets, without any compensation for that intellectual property. By 2012, Nutriset had changed course. It had stopped being almost the sole producer of ready-to-use therapeutic food and instead allowed licensees and franchisee partners, chiefly located in low-income countries, to make the packets without having to pay any royalties. It did, however, make an exception for the United States. It allowed Edesia, a Rhode Island-based nonprofit, to become a Nutriset franchisee. It also provided these smaller producers with seed funding and technical advice. Nutriset is still the worlds largest ready-to-use therapeutic food producer, we have determined through our research. Its responsible for about 30% to 40% of the worlds annual production, down from more than 90% in 2008. There are some other U.S. manufacturers, such as Tabatchnick Fine Foods, but they arent Nutriset partners. Threatening legal action At the same time, the company continued to threaten to take legal action against potential rivals located in developed countries that were replicating their recipe without authorization. Usually, cease-and-desist letters were sufficient. Nutriset implemented this strategy to ward off competition from big multinational corporations that might try to establish their brands in new markets, gaining a foothold before flooding them with imported ultraprocessed food. A big risk, had that occurred, would have been less breastfeeding for newborns and the disruption of local diets. Nutrisets strategy of opening access to its patent selectively has enabled UNICEF to double the share of packets it buys from producers located in the Global South. UNICEF, the worlds biggest buyer of ready-to-use therapeutic food, bought less than one-third of its supplies from those nations in 2011. That share climbed to two-thirds in 2022. Nutrisets reliance on local franchisees has helped create over 1,000 jobs in hunger-stricken regions while strengthening the supply chain and reducing the carbon emissions of transportation, according to UNICEF. Nutrisets creative patent strategy also helped its partner producers in low-income countries, which include nonprofit and for-profit ventures, compete with large corporations in developed countries by the time its patent expired in 2018. In this instance, a for-profit company not only managed to keep its prices lower than its competitors, including nonprofits, but used its patent to support economic development in developing countries by shielding startup producers from international competition. As a result of these successes, we found that nongovernmental organizations eventually stopped criticizing the French company and recognized that high prices were actually not due to Nutrisets patent policy but rather to global prices of the packets ingredients. In recognition of its contributions and innovation, Nutriset won the U.S. Patent and Trademark Offices Patents for Humanity Award in 2015. Offering a cheap, convenient, and effective treatment One of the biggest advantages of ready-to-use therapeutic food is that parents or other caregivers can give it to their kids at home or on the go. Thats more convenient and cheaper than the alternative: several months of hospitalization where children receive a nutrient-dense liquid called therapeutic milk. The at-home treatment works most of the time. More than 80% of the children who get three daily food packets recover within two months. Severe acute malnutrition deaths remain high because historically only 25% to 50% of children suffering from it get treated with ready-to-use therapeutic food, due to insufficient funding. The treatment programs are run by governments, UNICEF and other international agencies, and NGOs such as Doctors Without Borders. USAIDs funding role The U.S. government spent about $200 million in 2024 through the U.S. Agency for International Development on ready-to-use therapeutic food, enough packets to treat 3.9 million children. Thats nearly as much as UNICEF, which treats about 5 million children annually. Its unclear whether the Trump administration, which is trying to dismantle USAID, will discontinue its funding of ready-to-use therapeutic food that the U.S. government has purchased exclusively from U.S. manufacturers with U.S.-sourced ingredients. At a time when the flow of development aid from several wealthy countries is declining, the precedent Nutriset set suggests that humanitarian organizations, by teaming up with international agencies, governments, and for-profit companies, can help drive down the costs of saving lives threatened by hunger while increasing the nutritional autonomy of the Global South. But the funding for ready-to-use therapeutic food and its distribution has to come from somewhere, whether it is from governments, foundations or other donors. Nicolas Dahan is a professor of management at Seton Hall University. Bernard Leca is a professor of management sciences at ESSEC. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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Graham Allcott has written six books, including the global bestseller How to Be a Productivity Ninja. He is the founder of Think Productive and has privately coached prominent international business leaders. Whats the big idea? Kindness, empathy, and psychological safety at work are not just fluffy, hippie ideas. They are key drivers of outstanding performance. Kindness is a practice that requires strength, skill, and intentionality. With it, every team can create an environment of abundant wellbeing, innovation, and growth. Below, Graham shares five key insights from his new book, KIND: The Quiet Power of Kindness at Work. Listen to the audio versionread by Graham himselfin the Next Big Idea App. 1. Kindness and empathy build trust and psychological safety. High-performing teams are built on trust and psychological safety. Kindness is one of the fastest ways to build this high-performing environment. Trust allows people to take risks, admit mistakes, and remove micromanagement and other forms of due diligence. In a team, psychological safetyfeeling able to take interpersonal risksleads to high performance. When a team is psychologically safe, people raise the alarm if they spot a problem and share the risky idea that might drive innovation. They tell hard truths but are also more open to feedback for improvement. They feel seen, heard, and part of a bigger picture. All the research points to psychologically safe, people-driven business as being more successful. Psychological safety leads to greater productivity, engagement, retention, well-being, creativity, innovation, and happiness. Kindness and empathy arent just moral nice-to-haves. Theyre strategic advantages for building a culture of psychological safety where the work matters because the people doing it matter. 2. Nice and kind are not the same. Kindness often gets bad press, or people might even say theres no place for kindness at work. Kindness is often considered weak or a quality of pushovers. But this is because people confuse being kind with being nice. Nice often is a bit weaknice cultures often focus on keeping the peace but shirk the responsibility to tell the truth or call out bad behavior. On the other hand, kind cultures focus on truth and grace. Nice is about telling people what they want to hear. Kind is about telling people what they need to hear. Imagine youve been in a meeting, and a colleague delivered a presentation to the group. It didnt go well. At the end of the meeting, your colleague asks you for feedback. At this moment, we face a choice. The nice option is that we tell a white lie to keep the peace: it was good; you did well. We are shirking the truth to keep the peace. Kind is about telling people what they need to hear. The kind route would be to invest 20 minutes the following day to go through some quick feedback. We can offer difficult and uncomfortable truth, but from a place of love. The result is that they can learn and improve. It takes real strength to choose kind over nice in that moment. Its inconvenient (it takes time), its brave (because you have to put your relationship with that person at risk to help them improve), and its skillful (because delivering the truth with grace takes a skilled communicator). But when everybody operates like that, no one fears feedback, people grow, and the teams performance and work output continuously improves. Being too nice can be a weakness, but being kind is pretty badass. 3. Challenging the Business Baddie narrative. Kindness drives performance. It also lowers stress levels and improves physical well-being. And its free. So, why isnt there more kindness? Whats holding us back? If you look at portrayals of business and work in theatre, fiction, and media, what youll find everywhere is the business bastard archetype. Back to Shylock and Ebeneezer Scrooge, right through to Shark Tank and The Wolf of Wall Street, were taught that those who treat people badly are the ones who succeed. Upon reading the biography of Steve Jobs, I witnessed many founders thinking that if they shouted at staff during their all-hands meeting, theyd build the next Apple. In the book, I debunk the idea of dog-eat-dog success. The majority of successful leaders, statistically, are likable. But reasonable people doing a great job, being kind, and inspiring loyalty along the way produce less interesting stories than an evil genius. From Warren Buffett to Jacinda Ardern to Brian Chesky at Airbnb to the kind managers and leaders that you know, there are remarkable leaders whose warmth and kindness set the tone for success. The business bastard narrative keeps us locked into a scarcity mindset, whereas kindness rewires our brains toward abundance. We need to move away from the self-talk that says there isnt enough time, or there isnt enough, or that we are not enough. We need to replace that self-talk with talk of abundance: I am enough. There is enough. When we see the world through this lens, then kindness is much easier. 4. Kindness is a verb. A lot of what we see online regarding kindnessthe #be kind hashtag, social media memes, virtue signallingis people adopting kindness as part of their identity. Theres no such thing as a kind person or an unkind person. There are just kind or unkind actions. All of us have the capacity to be kind or unkind. Kindness isnt something you are, its something you do. You are as kind as your last kind act or as unkind as your last unkind act. When we see kindness as a verb, not a noun, we recognize the importance of seeing kindness as a practice. There are no prizes for just having the thought. Kindness happens in the gap between having the idea to make someones day and actually making someones day. There are no prizes for just having the thought. Its the action that counts. The more we see kindness as a practice, the more we spot the gap when it happens. Its that tiny moment when you spot an opportunity to be kind. Youre on a train, and someone needs your seat more than you do, or youre in a meeting, and theres a tiny window of time to say something kind about a colleague. Act in that moment, and you make their day. Ponder for a couple of seconds too long, and the agenda moves on, and the moment is gone. Learning to leap into that gap rather than be held back by our own resistance is kindness. To notice more opportunities, it helps to slow down. The biggest source of accidental unkindness is busyness. When we reduce busyness and increase presence, it increases empathy, and we build stronger relationships with thse around us. 5. Kindness starts with you but doesnt end with you. I created 8 Principles of Kindfulness at Work. The first of these is that kindness starts with you. When we think about kindness, often our first thought is external: who needs our help? How can we be kind to a stranger? But the uncomfortable truth is that we have to start with self-kindness. Most of us are wired to treat others better than we treat ourselves. We think of self-care as somehow self-indulgent. But practicing self-kindness signals to others that self-kindness matters, and they can follow your example. It also helps us move our self-talk away from scarcity and toward abundant thinking. For the kindness it inspires in others, being kind to yourself is a radical act of generosity. Kindness starts with you. The people who are kinder to themselves find it easier to be kind to others. But of course, kindness doesnt end with you. In the coffee shops of Naples, they have a tradition called caffé sospeso. It basically means suspended coffee and its a pay-it-forward model. Theres a jar on the counter of the coffee shop and when I order my coffee, I tell the barista that I also want to order a caffé sospeso. When I do that, the barista gives me a suspended coffee ticket and I put it in the jar. Then, the next time someone comes in and doesnt have their wallet or money, they take out the ticket and claim a free coffee. Its a wonderful example of the power of a single, kind act to create a ripple effect. I feel good and get that helpers high, the barista feels good about where they work, the customers who witness it are inspired to do something kind, and then someone claims it, and everyone gets to witness the act of kindness all over again. Theres a lot of research that talks about how many ripple effects can come from a single act of kindness. All the coffee shop owner really did was find a jar and write caffé sospeso on it! They literally created a vessel for kindness and, in doing so, made it easy to be kind. Thats kindfulness. The idea that we can create vessels for other people to be kind. We can, in our work, make it easy for other people to be kind. Whether its instigating a thank you card for someone, or taking a few moments in a team meeting to ask everyone to say something they value about the person to their left, we can all create the vessels for kindness. Think about your own work: whats the equivalent of that jar at the coffee shop? How can you be a vessel for kindness, and make it easy for everyone around you to be kind? This article originally appeared in Next Big Idea Club magazine and is reprinted with permission.
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E-Commerce
Longtime Goya Foods president and CEO Robert Bob Unanue has published a bizarre press release about his recent departure from the company, leaving a lot of unanswered questions about what is happening behind the scenes at the Hispanic family-owned food and beverage company. Here’s what to know about Goya’s public drama. A vague press release reveals leadership in turmoil Unanue, who has led the Jersey City-based brand since 2004, said he’s unclear about his current employment status after being informed that the board voted him out. As Unanue’s self-published press release stated: “As to the nature of the decision and the rationale behind it, Unanue currently has no real answers, noting the company also has not publicly indicated that Unanue is no longer a leader of Goya Foods.” Unanue then took to X for a series of oddly worded posts, making seemingly unrelated statements including: “No board decision can shake my resolve. I remain fully committed to raising awareness, holding traffickers accountable, and ensuring a safer future for our nations children. Join me in this fight against one of the greatest evils of our time. GODS CHILDREN ARE NOT FOR SALE!” That post garned 140,000 likes, many from politically conservative accounts, while another post received 1.5 million views: “I recently received news that came as a big surprise. . . . While the decision has left many questions unanswered, one thing is certainI will not waver in my fight against child trafficking.” For some background, the company has a long history of charitable work, including its Goya Cares and Goya Gives programs. Goya Cares is dedicated to fighting and raising awareness about human and child trafficking, abuse, and online exploitation, and advocates for children’s mental health. Goya Gives is a corporate social-responsibility program that includes disaster relief and food donations. Goya Foods said its decision has nothing to do with charity work or politics. A recent decision regarding a change in leadership has absolutely no connection to politics, media appearances, nor has it impacted our vital work in protecting children and addressing food insecurity through our Goya Cares and Goya Gives initiatives, read a Goya Foods statement reported by CNN. Fast Company has reached out multiple times to both Goya Foods and Unanue for comment. A lawsuit airs a family’s dirty laundry The press release isn’t the only drama. Earlier this month, Goya board member and executive Francisco Frankie Unanue filed a lawsuit in New Jersey Superior Court against Bob Unanue (his cousin), alleging that Bob engaged in a clandestine agreement with his friend Suvajit Basu, by hiring Basu to head up Goya’s IT department without telling the board. This hiring resulted in Basu mismanaging and damaging the IT functions, alleges the lawsuit, as reported by CNN. It then went on to allege that Bob Unanue tried to interfere with the company’s attempt to resolve the issue, while Bob deflected his own responsibility. It also alleges that Bob refused to participate in an important board meeting for an independent investigation into the matter. Goya Foods originally filed a lawsuit against Basu in October 2024; Frankie Unanue joined the case as a plaintiff on February 5. Any allegations against Mr. Unanue are frivolous, absurd, and have absolutely no merit whatsoever,” a representative for Bob Unanue told CNN. “The allegations are both a smokescreen and defamatory and will be addressed accordingly. Basu has since filed a counter complaint, alleging a hostile work environment citing his Indian heritage. Goya said in a statement to CNN that it denies all of the allegations in Basus counter claim and third-party complaint. Bob Unanue, a Trump supporter, has faced criticism in the past from fellow Latino leaders for supporting the president during his first term, even prompting a social media backlash that called people to #BoycottGoya. Last year, Unanue appeared in Houston to endorse Trump in the 2024 presidential race. Founded in 1936 by Spanish immigrants, Goya Foods is the largest Hispanic-owned food company in the United States and a source for authentic Latin cuisine, according to its website. Goya sells more than 2,500 food and beverage products, including such staples as beans, rice, seasonings, tortillas, olive oil, and olives, bearing the popular tagline, If its Goya, it has to be good.”
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