Melissa Kushi, Social Change Entrepreneur, Creator of HimalaSalt & other ethically sourced Organic Products.
Melissa Kushi, Founder, President, Sustainable Sourcing, LLC
Melissa Kushi, Founder and President of Sustainable Sourcing, has devoted much of her life's work to sustainable foods, farming, alternative health, and ethical business models. As a social entrepreneur she traveled some of the world's most remote and deeply cultured regions creating bamboo micro-industries in rural Africa, replacing coca crops with organic cotton in the jungles of Peru, and introduced heirloom soybean seed to organic farmers in the US.
Working with indigenous people, Melissa was inspired by their wealth of ancient knowledge, biodiversity and traditional heirloom foods, and firmly believes them to be key to our collective future. She also witnessed the effects of adopting a "modern" refined diet in these communities and how it has eroded their health, natural farming practices and the rich biodiverse regions they inhabit.
It became clear to her that -- as the third world seeks balance for survival, the first world seeks balance for meaning. Her desire is to create Sustainable Sourcing as a means for nourishing both.
Along with her expertise at sourcing the highest quality natural products around the globe, Melissa is passionately committed to creating products that bring added social value to consumers. By giving them products that increase wellbeing while making a difference, it links people to the source community, supports and preserves their environment and way of life, and helps them to earn income at world market prices. This is done through her 5% give back, so each time you do something as simple as use HimalaSalt or her organic peppercorns, you are making a difference on the planet.
Melissa has worked diligently to design her product lines with the least impact on the earth, leaving the smallest footprint possible. All packaging is either 100% recycled, recyclable, refillable, or reusable, and her entire operation is offset with wind and solar certified by the Green-e. Going far beyond the requirements for certification, which offsets electrical use only, Melissa, with the help of the Bonneville Environmental Foundation, has offset every aspect of her company's fossil fuel consumption by calculating annual use for production, the creation of packaging, ocean freight, trucking, travel and shows, marketing, and what it takes to operate her new certified organic, kosher passover certified artisan production facility in the beautiful Berkshire Mountains of New England.
Melissa is pioneering new ways of packaging - her new Sustainable Sourcing Organics gift boxes reached her goal of zero landfill. Sustainable practices are what drives her. This latest gift boxed line is made from wood that is certified by the Sustainable Forestry Initiative, all product components are recycled, recyclable, refillable, or reusable, the inner layer of excelsior is from a sustainable tree program, and she brought it together with shrink film made from EarthFirst PLA 100% compostable corn. She continues to research and refine more efficient and earth-friendly ways to bring products to consumers to support Market-Based Social Change.
Melissa continues to support the renewal of traditional diet in these indigenous regions as a way to recover health, biodiversity, and to create heirloom food security, with ongoing projects on Native American reservations and in the Himalayas. In a past life, she was a wholefoods cooking teacher and macrobiotic educator, and a successful international organic commodities trader.
