A Global Company with Local Impact
July 18, 2024 | Steve Salevsky, Senior Director of Operations, Ajinomoto Health & Nutrition
For more than 30 years, Ajinomoto Health and Nutrition’s manufacturing plant in Eddyville, Iowa, has played a key role in providing food ingredients and seasonings for the rest of the world.
You can find our products in items in your pantry or when you’re out to eat. While our company is the global leader in culinary umami seasoning, we strive to support local initiatives that improve the quality of life for our employees and the regions we serve.
Ensuring the sustainability of food resources and biodiversity is key to Ajinomoto Co.’s Eat Well, Live Well mission. We want to continue to make our manufacturing locations more sustainable and supportive of the natural world.
In Eddyville, we are developing the Ajinomoto County-Line Wetland Project near our facility. The roughly 130 acres of wetlands and natural habitat we are restoring is along a bend in the Des Moines River. While the site has previously been farmland, it wasn’t particularly suited for crops due to recurring flooding, offering an opportunity for us to restore the area’s natural features.
When completed, this project will be one of the largest private wetlands restoration projects in the
Midwest. Plans include walking paths, as well as over 2,500 newly planted trees, shrubs, flowers, and grasses to support pollinators and provide habitat for a wide variety of wildlife species, including the endangered Indiana bat.
While there are numerous benefits for our community through this project, a few we are most proud of include the following:
- Improving local water quality through the benefits of wetlands
- Helping mitigate flooding in nearby communities
- Providing much-needed habitat for wildlife species and pollinators
- Sequestration of carbon while contributing toward plant life to promote oxygen release
As a part of our global commitment to sustainability, we have invested time, energy, and resources as a company to restore the wetlands. We couldn’t be more excited to introduce the site to employees and visitors later this year.
For Ajinomoto Health & Nutrition North America, Inc., this investment is a sign of our commitment to bettering the community we call home. It will provide a new reason for people to explore more of southern Iowa and consider what it might be like to live and work here. Strong communities help attract the best talent that makes it possible to be an innovative, rural manufacturer in Iowa.
We look forward to sharing more about our work and impact in Eddyville. Follow along with us on LinkedIn and through our website to learn more about how sustainability is guiding Ajinomoto Health & Nutrition’s business and community outreach.
Steve Salevsky is the Senior Director of Operations at Ajinomoto Health & Nutrition’s Eddyville production facility.