-- The Dole Sunshine Company partners with Ananas Anam to turn pineapple plant 
leaves into a natural textile that is driving sustainable design, furthering 
its commitment to zero fruit loss by 2025

The Dole Sunshine Company today announced its partnership with Ananas Anam, the 
London-based company behind Piñatex(R), an innovative, vegan and natural 
alternative to leather made from sustainably sourced pineapple leaf fibres. 
Through the collection and extraction of fibre from pineapple leaves from its 
farms in Philippines, one of the largest pineapple plantations in the world, 
Dole is not only taking another step toward its Promise of zero fruit loss by 
2025 but is also contributing to a world where sustainable material 
alternatives are becoming increasingly important as global lifestyle brands 
look for these alternatives for their products.

Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/152677/dole_packaged_foods_logo.jpg

Dole, which launched its six-prong Promise in June 2020, is committed to making 
an immediate and lasting impact when it comes to food waste, eliminating 
processed sugar and plastics, and improving nutrition access globally. In 
addition to its partnership with Ananas Anam, Dole is working towards a more 
circular economy and finding new packaging solutions for its products to reduce 
not only food waste, but plastics overall.

"At Dole, we believe purpose – and therefore our Promise – must permeate 
everything we do to address these global challenges head on.  Addressing food 
waste is absolutely important to us, as it is connected to our business and our 
lives in so many ways," said Pier-Luigi Sigismondi, global president, Dole 
Sunshine Company. "I believe to create tangible solutions and real systemic 
change to address this issue, we need to converge our purpose with creativity, 
innovation, and technology. Our partnership with Ananas Anam coupled with 
global lifestyle brands' use of this innovation truly bring this convergence to 
life in a new way."

Through this partnership, Ananas Anam's Piñatex(R) is made of fiber extracted 
from Dole's harvested pineapple plant leaves, which when dried and processed 
create a non-woven mesh to form the base of the sustainable material.  The use 
of the pineapple leaf fiber also presents the opportunity to build a scalable 
commercial industry for developing farming communities and livelihood 
improvement for small scale cooperatives / growers. See partnership video here( 
https://c212.net/c/link/?t=0&l=en&o=3232221-1&h=573604966&u=https%3A%2F%2Fyoutu.be%2FdXiAHKyRCZI&a=here 
).

"At Ananas Anam, we aim at meeting the challenges of our times by developing 
innovative products in which commercial success is integrated with, and 
promotes, social, ecological and cultural development. By connecting on a deep 
level with the people we work with, we build ecosystems that are bound 
together, symbiotically grow together in order to bring about positive changes 
into the world", said Dr Carmen Hijosa, Founder and Chief Creative & Innovation 
Officer at Ananas Anam.

"Through our partnership with Dole, our entity in the Philippines will access a 
much larger volume of pineapple leaf fibres, to meet the ever-increasing demand 
for Piñatex(R) not only in fashion, but also in the upholstery and automotive 
sectors. Working closely with Dole's teams on the ground will help us to create 
a wider positive social impact among farming communities and to continuously 
reduce our environmental footprint by valorising waste at scale", said Melanie 
Broye-Engelkes, CEO of Ananas Anam.

Piñatex(R) has been used by global lifestyle brands including Nike, Hugo Boss, 
H&M, Paul Smith and the Hilton Hotel London Bankside for the world's first 
vegan suite.

About Ananas Anam

London-based Ananas Anam is a B-Corp(TM) certified company responsible for 
developing innovative plant-based textiles disrupting the world of fashion 
materials and leading the way in sustainability. Their pioneering approach and 
progressive business model are driven by creative thinking, seeking out new 
ingenious technologies, and showing that ethics and business can be combined 
successfully.  Ananas Anam's instinctive and heartfelt desire is to protect and 
nurture; thereby building a better future for people and planet.

https://www.ananas-anam.com

About The Dole Sunshine Company

The name Dole Sunshine Company is used to represent the global interests and 
combined efforts of Dole Asia Holdings, Dole Worldwide Packaged Foods and Dole 
Asia Fresh. Dole Sunshine Company is not an actual business entity and does not 
operate as such in any country or region. For more information on Dole Sunshine 
Company, please visit www.DoleSunshine.com or www.SunshineForAll.com/en/blog.

SOURCE: Dole Packaged Foods, LLC 

CONTACT: Melissa Vigue, mvigue@peppercomm.com