Cultivating Sustainability: Verdure Sciences’ Fifth Annual Sustainability Report

What does sustainability look like when it goes beyond buzzwords and becomes a long-term commitment to people, communities, and the environment?

In this episode of Supplement Source, Jeff Ventura sits down with Ajay Patel, Founder and CEO of Verdure Sciences, and Isabella Bucklew, Sustainability Coordinator, to discuss the company’s fifth annual Sustainability Report. The conversation explores Verdure’s ongoing efforts to build resilient agricultural supply chains, support farming communities, and measure real-world environmental impact through data-driven initiatives. 

Ajay and Isabella share updates on a major water rejuvenation project in India, community health programs serving hundreds of local villagers and farmers, and collaborative efforts to assess the carbon footprint of botanical ingredients. They also discuss the challenges of implementing sustainable agricultural practices, the importance of strong supplier relationships, and why transparency and measurable outcomes are critical in an era of increasing scrutiny around sustainability claims. 

Tune in for an insightful discussion on how sustainability programs can create lasting value for communities, customers, and the dietary supplement industry.

About the Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN) 
The Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN), founded in 1973 and based in Washington, D.C., is the leading trade association representing the dietary supplement and functional food industry. Bringing together manufacturers, ingredient suppliers, and service providers, CRN unites its member companies around a shared commitment to science, transparency, and responsible business practices—advancing a strong, credible marketplace that supports consumer health and industry growth.

In an increasingly complex regulatory and media environment, CRN serves as the industry’s front line—shaping science-based policy, defending market access, and countering misinformation. Through strategic advocacy, self-regulatory leadership, voluntary guidelines, and evidence-based communications, CRN ensures that responsible companies are recognized, protected, and positioned to innovate and compete. Learn more at crnusa.org and follow @CRN_Supplements on X and LinkedIn.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Please note the Council for Responsible Nutrition, CRN, does not endorse any guests appearing on this podcast or any products or services they may discuss. The views and opinions expressed by guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of CRN. Thank you and enjoy the episode.

SPEAKER_00 0:29

You are listening to Supplement Source, the official podcast of the Council for Responsible Nutrition. And now your host, Jeff Ventura.

SPEAKER_03 0:38

Hello, and thank you for listening to Supplement Source. My name is Jeff Ventura. I'm the Vice President of Communications here at the Council for Responsible Nutrition. And I am delighted to have some folks who are friends of the show come back. We've got Ajay Patel, who is the founder and CEO of Vidur, and Isabella Buckloo, who is their sustainability coordinator. Welcome to both of you.

SPEAKER_02 1:02

Thanks, Jeff. Glad to be back on.

SPEAKER_03 1:04

Thanks, Jeff. Same here. Yeah, great. I was glad to see you both. So let's dive right in and talk about sustainability. I know this is a topic that's near and dear to you guys, and certainly the commitment is incredible to say the least. Fifth annual, is that right? Fifth annual sustainability report is out. Tell me, tell me a little bit about it. Tell me, tell me what new things you've uh you've discovered in this report.

SPEAKER_02 1:28

Yes, so yeah, that's correct. Our fifth annual sustainability report, we released it on Earth Day, the 22nd. Uh so really excited to be back and to talk to you about some of our newest and latest updates from that report. Um so I know the last time that we were on, we really touched on our sustainable procurement programs and the importance of just overall like our on-the-ground initiatives for you know the local communities and the impact that it has on the land. Um I know I I ended our last conversation with a water rejuvenation project that we had just kind of initiated as of December 2025. And happy to announce that that project in itself is soon to be completed. It'll be completed as of next month, followed by a two to three year kind of monitoring and impact assessment. But overall, the outcome of that project was to increase the pond water storage and overall improve you know the groundwater charging for that local area. Um, and then another exciting uh initiative that I can quickly kind of just mention, continuing on uh, you know, impacting the local communities. So Vritter was able to assist in the financial contribution of multiple social health camps last year. We were able to impact roughly around, I want to say, a hundred and or six hundred and eleven like villagers and farmers.

SPEAKER_03 2:52

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 2:53

And so this was something that was driven from three different of our sustainable procurement programs across three different regions, but overall just giving healthcare access, most importantly, preventative health care access to some of these local villagers and really just enables, you know, the early detection of health concerns.

SPEAKER_03 3:12

Wow. Ajay, you must be learning things. There's got to be, you know, when you do this over and over and over again, you're obviously you're at a different place in terms of your understanding of what's possible. So can you just walk me through the where have you been from the first year you folks did this till now?

SPEAKER_04 3:33

Absolutely. I mean, it is a journey, as uh I know mentioned that on a few different occasions. For example, the sustainable turmeric program, we started about eight years ago. And so I think you know there is obviously a lot of learnings along the way. I think it's very important to to really understand what these uh communities are actually going through in real time and what are possibilities, things that we can contribute to towards, and things that we may not be able to contribute to, and at least in the short term. And so, for example, when it comes to the specifically the turmeric program, I know that it it was challenging to grow this program because in India, where the turmeric grows, and for most part, agriculture is done in marginal farms. So you got half an acre, one acre. I mean, you know, you'd be lucky to have a five-acre farm. And so, how do we expand upon this program? So it has been a learning for us uh to understand where do we want to focus our attention in terms of the areas. And so we chose a particular area in India for our turmeric program that has historically grown turmeric, where the farmers are knowledgeable about growing turmeric, they have the experience, but then there are areas that we can come in and contribute towards so that they get motivated to continue to grow turmeric in this case, because they have other crops that they can grow. So I think, you know, again, engaging with those communities, as Bella mentioned, some of these uh camps that we drive, there are other initiatives that we drive, the water rejuvenation project is one of them. So, you know, yes, there's been learnings. The water rejuvenation project, for example, came about as a result of interactions that we were having with the communities there and uh them complaining about how the water level is getting depleted, uh, the water table is getting depleted, right, in that in that region. So even though it's not directly impacting the farmers, but it is impacting the communities that the farms are located in. And that's one of the other important things that we wanted to focus on is not just direct impact with respect to the farmers that we are contracting with, but also the broader community.

SPEAKER_03 5:40

It really is kind of a high watermark for uh any companies that are thinking about you know sort of going into a particular country to source a pro you know an ingredient. You gotta keep in mind when that harvest has happened, that community is still there and still needs to have a sustainable way to survive to the next crop. So it may not just be your ingredient that is in the mix, it could be other uh ingre you know ingredients or or produce that they're growing. You've got to make sure that their ecosystem supports them throughout the year if you want to come back to them and not have this sort of scorched earth where you know your your footprint has been. So it's it's a tremendous commitment, wouldn't you say?

SPEAKER_04 6:26

Exactly, yes. And I mean there's a lot of pushback that you get. I mean, it's like when we are working with a manufacturing partner and we have certain regulatory requirements. I mean, there is going to be pushback, right? Because these things are not easy uh to handle and they require investment, they require sometimes a lot of investment in the short term before you can see the return on that investment. And so I think when it comes to dealing with the farming communities, the growers, it's it's you know, it's the same because they've been used to doing things a certain way for a long time. So when you go in there and say, hey, we need it like this now, and here's here's our reasoning for it, it takes time for them to you know understand that and that in itself is is a journey. And and so when you asked earlier, what have we learned? So, yeah, over the eight uh years, I mean there's so many different things that we've learned. I mean, we go into post-hourist processing, that's another area that you know is very important uh as it relates to most of these botanicals, but turmeric in particular, and really trying to convince them for better practices. That's been something that has taken us time, but we have been able to achieve those over time.

SPEAKER_03 7:37

And maybe this is a question for for both of you. Um but with regard to the interactions that you have, you mentioned the regulatory schema that you encounter in these other countries. If we're talking, let's talk India. If we were so we're talking India and you're talking sustainability, do you feel like the programs that are in place governmentally, whether it be at the local level, the I don't know what this if it's the state or the, you know, what's the the province, the provincial level? Do you feel like those are too lax or that they're too stringent? Or, you know, how does that feel on the ground in terms of that structure?

SPEAKER_04 8:15

Aaron Powell Yeah, so there obviously there are local laws and you know, both on the state level, as you mentioned, on the province level and then and then on the federal level, there's a lot of incentives as well that are provided to these communities. Um yes, there are certain requirements that have been put by these agencies, however, there's not as much oversight or a check and balance. And so I think that that's where the gap comes. And so when we drive these programs, I think it's really important that in spite of these other requirements in place, are they actually being adopted, uh, are they actually being fulfilled by the farmers and the communities? And and that's I think a big difference that you know that we bring to these programs.

SPEAKER_03 9:02

It's we see that with the US FDA and its regulation of supplements, where we have regulations in place, but where we see sometimes I won't call it a falling down, but a sort of falling short is the enforcement of a lot of those regulations, particularly on bad actors. Uh, we've been pretty vocal about the fact that I mean it's one of the reasons why we want product listing to be a reality uh with the agency. Um so I I I relate to that. You can have things on the books, but then whether or not there's actually enforcement of those regulations is a whole other story. And when you come in and you're trying to convince them to follow something that isn't being enforced anyway, it must be uh a sobering sort of conversation to have.

SPEAKER_04 9:50

Yeah, like for example, bans banned pesticides. That's a that's that's a big uh topic. Um and even though those pesticides may be banned by the federal state agencies, but you still find those in in these botanicals. So, you know, that's a really good example there, you know, yeah, it could be banned, but then you're still finding them. And that's a hard conversation to have, I bet.

SPEAKER_02 10:16

Yeah, and I think that it really just ties into the importance of the ri relationships that we're developing within our supply chain, within the farmers, within our manufacturing suppliers. And it because, you know, it it for everything what we were previously just discussing, but then also for driving initiatives like, for example, the life cycle assessment that we were able to drive last year with Palmela, the gathering for a lot of that data needed to complete the life cycle assessment wouldn't have been possible if we hadn't have had those pre-developed relationships because there's a lot of insight that needs to go into it to complete an LCA beyond just soil input or you know, cultivation method. You really have to have those relationships because it it requires details such as like how the farmer's transporting the product to the manufacturing site, what that distance is, what the fuel is, all those really nitty gritty type details.

SPEAKER_03 11:11

Obviously, the importance of telling this story to in the B2B space to your to your customers who are buying these ingredients becomes I mean they are they as tuned into like they want this. I mean, they're tuned into obviously to the sustain it's a it it it must be uh how do you tell that story, I guess is what I'm getting at, to maximize the value to them and to also create a sort of expectation that this kind of integrity is something that you're not gonna step away from. It may even impact cost ultimately, I'm sure it does, but that it's worth it. I mean it how do you tell that story to your customers?

SPEAKER_04 12:01

Yeah, so that's a really interesting uh point you make because I think I mentioned in my previous podcast that the customer is not only interested, but they're also collaborating with us. Uh as Bella mentioned, the LCA that we were able to accomplish uh for Pamela, our pomegranate extract. Um, that was done in collaboration with the customer. The customer approached us and wanted to see if we could drive that. So that's happening from the customer side. So obviously, you know, they know the importance of it, and they obviously have some idea of how they want to position that or market that, do the storytelling about that. The other side of it is uh what we are doing is a result of these programs that we are driving internally. And then we are taking these really specific outcomes. We're talking about, for example, in a turmeric program, uh, the level of uh curcuminoids in the turmeric. And how are we increasing or enhancing those, right? Or increasing the yields and then the lifecycle assessment itself, which actually we are able to also do for the turmeric in collaboration with our uh manufacturing partner in India. Uh, that's a huge piece of information because you're talking about carbon footprint, but how do you measure that? And how do you measure that specifically for your product? And so I think there's a big interest there from the customers from the industry, and we are able to, you know, collaborate there. But I'll let uh Bella chime in as well.

SPEAKER_02 13:18

Yeah, I was about to say I have an another perfect kind of example of that sort of customer buy-in that we're seeing. So Verder is a founding member of an external organization that we meet with pretty frequently called the Sustainable Herbs Initiative. And I'm currently in a working group from that uh organization. And it's called the Scope 3 Working Group, but essentially it's a part of other external companies, and we've all come together and financially we're all contributing to pay for a third-party platform to continue to do an evaluation and gather the data for or the ultimate goal is to get an emissions factor for some of these botanical herbs that you know that public data isn't currently already available. And it's it's a very costly thing for companies to do on our own. So collaboratively, all these companies coming together, we're able to get a lifecycle assessment for you know multiple botanical ingredients. So that right there is just one example of the external and then internal buy-in and interest.

SPEAKER_03 14:22

Well, and some of that marketing that ultimately shows up in the branded products that you know who are your customers, to your point, you know, I'm sure some of that, some of what you're doing in the sustainability channel is absolutely vital to a truthful telling of their brand propositions because they want to say that this was sustainably grown, that this is I can see it being a reason why they approach you in the first place. I mean, do you feel like that's a that there is a sort of uh an understanding of that value and and when they come to you initially, or do you do you have to sort of you know educate them about that, and then that may influence their marketing down the road? Or do they come to you and say, we're coming to you because of what you're doing? We read your report, and uh, you know, we really like like what you're doing.

SPEAKER_04 15:16

Yeah, I would like to say it's both. Uh in fact, I had a meeting last week uh in Barcelona at Buy the Foods, and one of the rubber in, Ajay. Yeah, I'm gonna rub it in. Um our longtime customers, strategic partner, basically asked us can they use some of this information in uh storytelling and delivering that messaging to their customers, to their to the consumer, uh, because uh this is a brand uh that sold you know e-commerce in and retail. And those are things that we are working on because obviously there's a lot of information with respect to what we are doing, right? You can generate a lot of information, but how do you translate it into meaningful ways the consumer can understand? And so I think that's where we are working on right now is okay, what do we do here? Uh, you know, we've got information about you know how it's impacting the climate, for example. But how would how do we deliver that? I think one of the things that would be really important is to look at the LCA of the finished ingredient itself, not just the botanical. So when we talk about uh, you know, we've done that with Pamela as an example, but we can do that for some of the other ingredients uh in the final extracts that we then uh market uh to our customers, and then they are obviously marketing those to the consumer. I think that's going to be really important. And so yeah, there are ways, and we are also brainstorming internally how best to assist and collaborate with our customer partners.

SPEAKER_03 16:43

Well, and it's interesting to me that the there's doing the right thing, which can be a very instinctive, kind of common sense thing, right? And then there's doing the right thing and backing it up with data, which is a whole other animal. And it's a place that I think a lot of places do the first part where they do enough to sort of tick off the boxes in terms of marketing, to be able to say, I did this, we did that, we care about this, we care about that. But then when you do what you guys are doing, which is really now peeling the onion layer back and saying, hey, we also really want to know what the actual impact is in terms of our measures that we're taking and getting at that data. Kind of an incredible undertaking, really.

SPEAKER_04 17:31

Yeah, absolutely. And I'll let Bella chime in because you know she's been instrumental in putting all the these data together. As you rightly said, Jeff, I mean, there's a lot of data, uh meaningful data, but uh how do you put it all together and communicate that? So, you know, Bella has done a great job in the report.

SPEAKER_03 17:47

And they call them proof they I mean proof points is uh is a good way to describe it because it really is proving putting your money where your mouth is and and and doing that with data integrity. Isabella, uh parting words as we as we wrap up?

SPEAKER_02 18:02

Yeah, I mean I guess I'll comment on the fact that, you know, unfortunately there is a lot of greenwashing, not just within this industry, but just within sustainability as a whole. Um, and that's really why we try to put emphasis on the work that we're doing, the data that we're publishing. I guess one final little project update that I'll share before we leave is that I've been doing a lot of collaborative work with some grad students at Duke University. Part of that was to continue to strengthen our scope three emission data collection, but the our other side of that was also to just serve as an internal mini audit to just really emphasize that we are going about this data collection in the way that we should uh to make sure that we are making an impactful difference.

SPEAKER_03 18:49

Well, I love talking impact with the two of you. Uh you are clearly friends of our little podcast, and you are welcome back anytime. Andre Patel and Isabella Bucklu of Vidur Sciences. Thank you so much for uh being here today. We really appreciate it. Thank you, Jeff, for this opportunity. Yeah, come back soon, please. Absolutely.