Meet the Minnesota-based coconut oil company changing lives in the Philippines

Erik Olsen knew there was a mission to accomplish before he even knew what it was.

It's what led him to leave a successful business venture for war-torn Iraq in 2003.

"My mom thought I was going to come back in a coffin," he jokes decades later.

From there, it led him to work with a team from Yemen, traveling the world help rescue victims of trafficking.

But when he arrived in the Philippines, the mission was finally clear.

"We just felt like there was more that could be done," Olsen said. "We knew there could be more impact in this area. So, we did a survey and we . . . We asked, we went to the different farmers and started asking them questions."

It was then he realized the mission wasn't education, or a typhoon resistant home. It was freedom from debt – and it was tied to an industry you might not expect.

Olsen says the primary industry in the area was coconut farming, and many farmers had found themselves tied to predatory loans, with interest rates as high as 200%. The result was 90% of farmers in the country living in poverty with virtually all of them drinking unclean water. Industry middlemen acted like a cartel, making sure things never had the potential to change.

The solution: Dignity Made, a company that puts the control back in the hands of the farmers. Olsen and the team created a factory right in the heart of town – employing, and empowering, a community in the process.

Now, the end result is an award-winning coconut product on thousands of store shelves across America.

BIGGER THAN BELIEF
Erik Olsen joins Adam Duxter on this week's episode of Bigger Than Belief, a weekly podcast exploring faith, belief, and religion – all through the stories of believers. With an emphasis on understanding belief through personal experience, we aim to create a conversation about faith that is fair, honest, and easy to understand, regardless of what you do (or don't) believe. We'll also take a journalistic approach to concepts and questions that are difficult to understand, while helping to make sense of current events impacting believers in our communities.

You can find the entire episode now by searching Bigger Than Belief wherever you listen to podcasts.