Dole Sunshine Company partners with EDB New Ventures to create a new business in specialty ingredients developed from fruit side-streams

Funding marks yet another Dole milestone towards zero fruit loss by 2025 as part of the Dole Promise

Dole Sunshine Company (DSC) is partnering the Singapore Economic Development Board (EDB) for its new corporate venture, Dole Specialty Ingredients (DSI). This new venture will focus on sourcing and transforming fruit side streams and unutilised fruit parts by repurposing them into high-value natural products like enzymes, extracts, seed oils and fibres. As a corporate venture, DSI will receive a boost by leveraging Dole Sunshine Company’s backward-integrated supply chain. DSI will be led by Managing Director Weitze Ooi.

Over 20 per cent of fruits and vegetables produced globally are lost in the supply chain before they reach consumers. DSI was set up by DSC to reduce fruit losses at its source, by transforming such side-streams into specialty ingredients that can be used in the pharmaceutical, nutraceutical, cosmeceutical, food & beverages, and other industries.

EDB New Ventures, the corporate venture building arm of EDB, is co-investing in DSI alongside DSC. The investment will co-share the risks undertaken by DSC to enter into new growth areas beyond its core business. In addition to the investment, a full-time venture building team from EDB New Ventures was dedicated to co-build the venture for two months alongside DSC. Functioning like co-founders, the team developed the venture’s product portfolio and go-to-market strategy, with the aim of accelerating its speed to market. EDB New Ventures further supported DSI by providing access to industry networks.

The Agency for Science, Technology & Research (A*STAR) also contributed to the launch of DSI, by embedding five scientists from the Singapore Institute of Food and Biotechnology Innovation (SIFBI) and the Institute for Chemical and Engineering Sciences (ICES) alongside the EDB venture building team, bringing their technology capabilities and expertise to the venture.