A partnership to fight global hunger—how Edesia and Dennis Group are building the infrastructure to nourish millions.

In a small Liberian village, seven-month Tete Toe sits on her mother’s lap looking around wide-eyed with her thumb in her month, while she waits to be evaluated at the Marshall clinic. Tete is severely malnourished, weighing only eight pounds – a weight you often see in newborns in the US. Poor skin color and a protruding stomach make clinic staff afraid she will succumb to the same cruel fate as her twin who died the week before. Tete is immediately put on a threetime daily diet of Edesia’s Plumpy’Nut, a lifeline designed to save the most vulnerable. By week three of receiving the nutrition-packed supplement, a feeling of relief washes over everyone as the scales reveal that Tete has gained 0.7 pounds and continues to have a good appetite. Her story is just one of the 22 million children’s lives across 62 countries that Edesia’s Plumpy’Nut has saved – and they’re hoping to increase that number exponentially, with Dennis Group’s assistance.

Founded in 2010 by Navyn Salem, Edesia’s unwavering mission centers on combating acute-malnutrition’s impact through innovative nutritional solutions. With a team of 125 professionals hailing from 25 different countries, Edesia’s impact spans the globe. Their revolutionary “Plumpy’Nut”, known as a Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF), is a transformative peanut-based paste made from milk powder, peanuts, soy, oil, sugar, and essential vitamins and minerals. It requires no water or refrigeration, making it easily transported and distributed even in conflict zones, and it can be administered at home by a child’s caregivers. Plumpy’Nut has the remarkable potential to rehabilitate a child under five in just eight weeks.

Dennis Group is helping Edesia achieve their goal of maximizing their life-changing impact by working to expand capacity at their current facility in North Kingstown, RI. It’s an area that is familiar to many in Dennis Group; we built the Cargill protein processing facility that sits in the same industrial park as Edesia. The first step was a project definition effort, which has yielded the footprints for a 240,000 SF expansion built onto their facility that will double capacity and lower Edesia’s overall operating costs.

The urgency is palpable at Edesia as they work tirelessly across two shifts daily to amplify their impact on childhood malnutrition. As Ms. Salem noted in a recent UN Security Council meeting “we work 24 hours a day, 7 days a week to produce these miracle foods. But every day the needs grow,” fueled by climate change and conflict. Edesia’s US facility is critical to the supply chain of Plumpy’Nut since many of their manufacturing partners, located adjacent to areas of need, are under threat. A factory in Sudan was devastated in a bombing, a new coup threatens a Niger facility, and ongoing violence in Haiti has forced the construction of increasingly complex security walls around the Plumpy’Nut production facility. This expansion project is not just about bricks and mortar; it’s a realization of Edesia’s commitment to save lives. Dennis Group project manager, Gary Mistalski, succinctly captured this sentiment when he expressed, “Being a part of a project with such profound purpose is truly inspiring.”

Meet Navyn Salem, CEO of Edesia

You cite your four daughters as inspiration for starting Edesia. What specifically compelled you to address childhood malnutrition?

My father and generations of his family are from Tanzania. While I was born in the United States, I took a trip to Tanzania in 2007 to see his birthplace. I knew from family stories that my grandmother had six children, but two of them didn’t live past their second birthday. During that trip, I witnessed firsthand populations in East Africa who are vulnerable to malnutrition. Surviving until your fifth birthday is a real challenge in the global south. At that time, my girls were all under five years of age, so this tragedy deeply resonated with me, particularly because it is completely preventable. I asked myself: “If we know what the solution is why aren’t we doing more about it?” At first, I thought I should wait until my girls were older and of school age to start a company, but then I realized we don’t have time to wait because 8,000 children will die each day.

Plumpy’Nut is a shelf-stable ready-to use therapeutic food (RUTF) produced by Edesia. Plumpy’Nut is also manufactured by a global network of companies called Plumpyfield. What role does Edesia play in this network?

We’re part of a network of producers that manufacture Plumpy’Nut: a life-saving product that doesn’t require water or refrigeration and can be easily administered at home. We all have different strengths and competencies, so we help each other. We believe that ensuring a sustainable and robust supply of our products requires a network of local suppliers to complement Edesia’s production, which currently serves 64 countries. The PlumpyField Network (started by Nutriset, in France) was initiated in order to build production capacity in malnutrition hotspots in the Global South. We are also able to act as a safety net during production disruptions at our partner facilities.

For example, the PlumpyField factory in Sudan was bombed in April, and there is nothing left due to the ongoing war. We are helping them secure financing and loans to set up an interim operation in Cairo. Our partner in Haiti doesn’t have the luxury to do R&D; they are focused on building a border security wall around their factory to protect against gangs. Nutriset and Edesia will handle things our partners don’t have the capacity to take on. We sometimes take it for granted in the United States that electricity is running every day, water is running every day, our factories are not being bombed, and a gang has never threatened our facility. These are things our partners must deal with every day.

What kind of role does research and innovation play in Edesia’s product and approaches?

R&D is very focused on formula development. We have many variations so we can pivot our recipe formulation if a commodity is unavailable or has become too expensive. R&D also looks at new demographics that can benefit from the products that we make or don’t yet make. We focus on those first 1,000 days of life from conception to age two, understanding how crucial nutrition is for brain development and healthy children, as well as pregnant and lactating mothers. Some of our new products are related to supporting pregnant mothers or preventing malnutrition before it starts in children under age two.

You are so much more than a food manufacturer, having also been involved with advocacy. Malnutrition strongly correlates with complex issues such as climate change, conflict, and food insecurity. What are some of the critical programs or strategies you use to address the interconnected challenges of malnutrition?

We use education and advocacy to bring awareness to other factors that deeply affect children. I’ve spoken at the UN Security Council to address Russia, China, and other countries who are involved in perpetrating war or contributing to growing conflicts. While most are focused on Russia’s war against Ukraine, their growing influence on Africa and the implications on the future of those democracies has gone largely unnoticed. Speaking engagements are a way to draw awareness to how children are victims of conflict; it’s one of the biggest root causes of malnutrition. Conflicts like these are created by humans, and they can be stopped by humans.

What has surprised you most about Edesia’s growth and impact over the last 14 years?

I never foresaw this amount of growth. We doubled output from last year to this year, which meant moving to 24/7 shifts. We have an incredible engineering and maintenance team, and we’re constantly adding equipment and improving line efficiency to support greater capacity. That’s exciting because our increased production output is directly measured in children’s lives. That’s the only KPI that matters. In 2023 we will reach 5 million children with a full RUTF dosage which is 6-10 weeks of treatment.

Can you talk about your expansion plans?

In 2016, we built our current facility in Rhode Island, and we are poised to nearly quadruple the space with our planned expansion. Our goal is to introduce a lot more vertical integration, which is where Dennis Group has come in. Good engineering is really important, because cost is everything. The less we charge per kilogram, the more children we feed. It’s simply a math game. Our distributors (UNICEF, World Food Programme, USAID) have a certain budget to spend, and if you can charge 20% less, you feed 20% more.

Edesia has had a lot of success stories. Is there any particular success story that was particularly impactful to you?

I was in Liberia many years ago and met a six-month-old and her mom. The mother had lost the little girl’s twin sister to malnutrition because she had listened to village elders who advised her not to go to the clinic. As the mother of twin girls, it was heartbreaking. Luckily, she ignored this advice for the second girl, who was given a treatment of Plumpy’Nut. I got to see the girl again a few months ago. She is now age 6 and she’s not just surviving but thriving. We don’t often get to see outcomes years after treatment. It speaks to the power of how one therapeutic box can transform an entire life. And the fact that we can deliver a treatment for $50 – that’s not just one serving but an entire 6-10 weeks of treatment including food and transport – is a pretty amazing ROI you never tire of seeing.

What else would you like us to know about Edesia?

Our team is very diverse. We come from 26 countries, and many are former refugees who have relied on food aid sometime in their lives. Our community is an incredibly knowledgeable group of hardworking, resilient employees who understand the why. It’s energizing to work with a group who understands the urgency, the need to eliminate waste, the need to be on time, and it is why we show up every day. Being a former refugee means a lot of different things. They might have been a teacher, or a physician, or a politician in their country. Our team’s diverse experience means they also have a tremendous wealth of knowledge which can include insights into geography, political situations, language nuances, secure shipping routes, or appropriateness of product packaging.