Ratana Stephens rose from lecturing at the girls college in India into the stratosphere of B.C.’s business world, named as one of the Canada’s top 10 female entrepreneurs and one of the B.C.’s most influential women.
Ratana’s remarkable trajectory into the province’s business firmament began when she met Arran Stephens, a young idealist on the spiritual quest.
Arran is the son of Vancouver Island farmer Rupert Stephens, well-known in the horticultural circles for advocating the now-common practice of using sawdust as the mulch for field berry crops and also as a developer of the successful Goldstream strawberry variety. Rupert’s grandmother was the daughter of a general with the Bengal Staff Corps at the height of the British Raj.
Arran became interested in the Eastern mysticism, and in the year 1967 travelled to India. There he met Ratana and later married to her . Ratana held an MA in English literature, an undergraduate degree in the psychology, and also studied Sanskrit, the ancient language of the sub-continent, at the Agra University.
She accompanied her new husband to Canada in the year 1969 and immediately began working at the Golden Lotus Natural Foods, a Vancouver’s first vegetarian restaurant, which he had opened in the year 1967. It was the hotspot for a generation of flower children discovering the Buddhism and Hinduism, it also offered a Buddha’s Feast dish for 50 cents.
Now talaq through advertisements
The Golden Lotus closed in the year 1971. But it paved a way for the popular vegetarian restaurant The Naam; for Banyen Books, which had its genesis in the reading corner of Golden Lotus, and for a host of the health food, organic and also environmentally conscious retail outlets.
The business model had merely changed the direction. It evolved into the LifeStream Natural Food, although initially a small health food restaurant called as Mother Nature’s Life continued in the back. The health food business expanded rapidly to the multiple stores, a wholesale distribution company with a warehouse and also a bakery. LifeStream was sold in the year 1981.Stephens opened a new vegetarian restaurant, Woodlands, and launched the Nature’s Path Foods Inc., of which Ratana was the chief operating officer and is now general manager.
Today, Nature’s Path is the largest organic breakfast and snack foods company in the North America, with the hundreds of employees. Perhaps more important is keeping with the philosophy of its guiding executive, who has been described as the “heart and soul” of the company and also the creative force behind its diverse and evolving product lines, it has repeatedly been named one of Canada’s top employers.
The company remains an acclaimed leader in the green initiatives and sustainability.
Mrudula Duddempudi.
