How an Adventist Health Food Company Is Leveraging AI to Share Its Message

24 Feb 2026


Australia and New Zealand’s Sanitarium is making the most of new technologies.

Marcos Paseggi, Adventist Review

Todd Saunders (right) and Rachel Glasbergen, from Sanitarium Australia and New Zealand, share how the company is resorting to AI tools to share its message across. [Photo: Marcos Paseggi, Adventist Review]



Artificial intelligence (AI) has made significant strides in images and video during the past couple of years, and the Sanitarium Health Food Company in Australia and New Zealand is tapping into some of those new possibilities, according to the company executive general manager Todd Saunders. In a presentation during the 2026 Adventist Health Food Association (AHFA) Conference in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, Saunders and Rachel Glasbergen, who leads The Alternative Dairy Company for Sanitarium, shared how the company is leveraging AI use to streamline the company ads across platforms and what they have learned along the way.

In their February 10 presentation, Saunders and Glasbergen highlighted the opportunities, challenges, and possibilities of AI in the area of marketing and advertising. They did it by sharing some case studies based on their experience of The Alternative Dairy Company, a brand under Sanitarium that produces specialized, barista-grade plant-based milks, including oat, almond, soy, and coconut. Designed for cafés, their products are crafted for superior frothing and latte art, and in many cases use locally sourced ingredients.

World Religious Freedom Conference Tackles Tough Issues

Avoid secular society’s lead, speaker says.

Mark A. Kellner, news editor, and Bettina Krause, IRLA communication director, reporting from Punta Cana, Dominican Republic


A
AVOID SECULARIZING RELIGION:Denton Lotz, IRLA president, gave a keynote address on secularism and religious freedom. He said, “Religion will die when it no longer focuses on God, but only on autonomous man. Religion will thrive when it focuses on God.”ddressing nearly 900 delegates and guests at the Seventh World Congress of the International Religious Liberty Association (IRLA), Denton Lotz, a noted Baptist minister and IRLA president, summarized the purpose of this three-day event: “We’re here today because we believe that freedom of religion is basic to all human rights.”

That view, sadly, is not shared in many parts of the world, something Lotz said made holding the sessions even more important.

“It’s incumbent upon us to work together so that we live together in harmony and concord,” Lotz said to the audience of leaders from Christian, Muslim, Jewish, and other communities. “We don’t need religious wars.”

That violence against believers remains a problem was evident from a session-opening video presentation noting the death sentences pronounced—but not yet carried out—on Christians in Pakistan and Iran on charges of “blasphemy,” and the assassinations of Pakistani officials Salman Taseer, governor of Punjab province, and Shahbaz Bhatti, minorities minister. Also cited was the extreme religious repression found in North Korea.


WITH LIBERTY FOR ALL: Ted N. C. Wilson, president of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, gave an impassioned plea for religious liberty at the Seventh World Congress of the International Religious Liberty Association.While the main congress theme, “Secularism and Religious Freedom—Conflict or Partnership?” may seem far removed from lands where persecution is active, Lotz took a different view.

“Most people worldwide suffer from a lack of religious freedom. Seventy percent of the world livesin places of religious repression,” he said.

Speaking to an audience that included Seventh-day Adventists, Mennonites, Roman Catholics, Baptists, Mormons, and Scientologists, among others, IRLA secretary general John Graz noted that the world congress is a multifaceted event.

“This congress is about religious freedom, but it is not a religious event,” Graz said. “We are all here together. We represent different faiths, different religions, and different churches. We are different; but we are respectful of each other.”

During the congress speakers and delegates attempted to negotiate the challenges of a world that is increasingly hostile to a variety of religious expression in the public square. While standing for separation of church and state, Lotz issued a call for religion to avoid following a secular society’s lead.


HUMAN DIGNITY STRESSED: “We are here because we believe in human dignity, and religious freedom is part of human dignity. Religious freedom is part of God’s gift of love for all people and everywhere,” said John Graz, secretary general of the International Religious Liberty Association, sponsored by the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, in opening the group’s Seventh World Congress.


JAMAICAN DELEGATE: Nigel Coke, an ILRA leader in Jamaica, was one of nearly 900 delegates at the IRLA’s Seventh World Congress in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, April 26, 2012.“I believe that allowing secularism to define what a religion believes is the greatest challenge to religious freedom,” Lotz told delegates. “When we allow the secularization of our faith to transcend the transcendent, it loses its meaning,” he added.

According to Lotz, “religion will die when it no longer focuses on God, but only on autonomous man. Religion will thrive when it focuses on God.”


In a statement read to delegates, the country’s president, Leonel Fernández Reyna, offered “a most cordial welcome to the Dominican Republic, a land of freedom. The Dominican Republic is a place of freedom for Christians, Muslims, Jews, and people of other faiths.”

In his April 27, 2012, keynote, Ted N. C. Wilson, president of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, challenged believers to grasp the opportunities for open discourse that a secular state preserves.

Although acknowledging the inevitable conflict between the values of believers and that of secular culture, he said: “We have to accept this tension as part of a free society. We have to accept the challenges and find appropriate responses through God’s leading.”

Wilson drew a distinction between “radical” or “extreme” secularism, which seeks to exclude religion from the public sphere, and “secular governance,” which remains neutral between religions and protects the religious freedom rights of minorities.

“If intolerant and ideological secularism attacks our religious values, we have to stand up for them with conviction,” he said. Wilson cited examples in which secularism has been taken too far, including attempts to prohibit Muslims from wearing headscarves to public school, or to mandate the provision of abortions by institutions that reject the practice as a matter of conscience.

However, Wilson also said that people of faith should reject the temptation to see a “religious state” as an acceptable alternative to secular governance.

He said his lifelong passion for promoting religious liberty has its roots in memories of his father, Neal Wilson, a former world church leader who often spent hours with government officials explaining the value of freedom of conscience.


Source

.

Introduction to Punta Cana

Photo (Courtesy) http://www.turquoise-to.fr/iles/hebergement.php?url=punta-cana-hotel-paradisius

On the easternmost tip of the island, 211km (131 miles) east of Santo Domingo, is Punta Cana, the site of major vacation developments, including the Barceló and Meliá properties, with more scheduled to arrive in the future. Known for its 32km (20 miles) of white-sand beaches and clear waters, Punta Cana and Bávaro are an escapist's retreat. Set against a backdrop of swaying palm trees, these beaches are unrivaled in the Caribbean. Within some of the most arid landscapes in the Caribbean -- it rarely rains during daylight hours -- Punta Cana and Bávaro have been recognized throughout Europe (especially Spain) and the Americas for their climate.

Both Punta Cana and Bávaro, two resort areas at either end of a long curve of beach lined with coconut palms, are virtually towns within themselves. The beach is so mammoth there is rarely overcrowding, even with masses of visitors every month of the year. Bávaro and Punta Cana combine to form what is nicknamed La Costa del Coco, or the Coconut Coast, land of the all-inclusive resorts. Don't expect a town or city. From Punta Cana in the south all the way to Playa del Macao in the north, there's only one small community, El Cortecito. Everything else is all-inclusives and beaches.

Capitalizing on cheap land and the virtually insatiable desire of Americans, Canadians, and continentals for sunny holidays during the depths of winter, European hotel chains participated in something akin to a land rush, acquiring large tracts of sugar-cane plantations and pastureland. Today their mega-hotels attract a clientele that's about 70% European or Latin American. Most of the other clients are Canadians and Americans. The hotel designs here range from the not particularly inspired to low-rise mega-complexes designed by the most prominent Spanish architects.

Some of them, particularly the Barceló Bávaro complex , boast some of the most lavish beach and pool facilities in the Caribbean, spectacular gardens, and avant-garde concepts in architecture (focusing on postmodern interplays between indoor and outdoor spaces).

The mailing addresses for most hotels is defined as the dusty and distinctly unmemorable town of Higüey.

If you choose to vacation in Punta Cana, you won't be alone, as increasing numbers of Latino celebrities are already making inroads there, usually renting private villas within private compounds. Julio Iglesias has been a fixture here for a while. And one of the most widely publicized feuds in the Dominican Republic swirled a few years ago around the owners of Casa de Campo and celebrity designer Oscar de la Renta, who abandoned his familiar haunts there for palm-studded new digs at Punta Cana.

Above all, don't expect a particularly North American vacation. The Europeans were here first, and many of them still have a sense of possessiveness about their secret hideaway. For the most part, the ambience is Europe in the Tropics, as seen through a Dominican filter. You'll find, for example, more formal dress codes, greater interest in soccer matches than in the big football game, and red wine rather than scotch and soda at dinner. Hotels are aware of the cultural differences between their North American and European guests, and sometimes strain to soften the differences that arise between them.

Source: http://www.frommers.com/destinations/puntacana/0335010001.html#ixzz1tLCtPYvG

Adventist president explores clash between secularism and religious belief

Apr. 26, 2012 Punta Cana, Dominican Republic
Bettina Krause

Seventh-day Adventist world church President Ted N. C. Wilson today challenged believers to grasp the opportunities for open discourse that a secular state preserves.

His comments came during a keynote address to the 7th World Congress for Religious Freedom. The gathering has drawn hundreds of religious liberty advocates, government officials, scholars and legal experts to the Dominican Republic this week to examine the influence of secularism on religious expression.



Adventist world church President Ted N. C. Wilson addresses the audience at the 7th World Congress for Religious Freedom on April 26. Tensions between the "values of believers" and secular culture are an inevitable part of a free society, he said. [photos: Ansel Oliver]

Although acknowledging the inevitable conflict between the values of believers and that of secular culture, Wilson said, “We have to accept this tension as part of a free society. We have to accept the challenges and find appropriate responses, through God’s leading.”

Wilson drew a distinction between “radical” or “extreme” secularism—which seeks to exclude religion from the public sphere—and “secular governance,” which remains neutral toward religions and protects the religious freedom rights of minorities.

“If intolerant and ideological secularism attacks our religious values, we have to stand up for them with conviction,” he said. Wilson cited examples of where secularism has been taken too far, including attempts to prohibit Muslim girls from wearing headscarves to public school, or to mandate the provision of abortions by institutions that reject the practice as a matter of conscience.

“It’s taken too far when the mention of creation of the world is totally forbidden in the public schools or when Christian agencies for adoption of children are threatened to lose their legal recognition, if they refuse to list as potential parents same sex couples,” he said.

However, Wilson also said that people of faith should reject the temptation to see a “religious state” as an acceptable alternative to secular governance. “If the state gives one religion a privileged legal position, no equality is possible and life becomes a nightmare for those who are different,” he said.


Nigel Coke is an International Religious Liberty Association leader in Jamaica. He is one of nearly 900 delegates at the IRLA 7th World Congress in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic this week.

“Which type of society is it that condemns to death someone for apostasy because they have changed religions?” he asked. “Is that a secularized or religious society?”

Wilson said that Adventism’s strong heritage of religious freedom activism and its support for state neutrality between religions has firm biblical foundations, and that Adventists “feel very close to believers who have stood for religious freedom during thousands of years of restrictions and persecution.”

He said his life-long passion for promoting religious liberty has its roots in memories of his father, Neal Wilson—a former world church leader—who often spent hours with government officials explaining the value of freedom of conscience.

“We need to instill in young people the love for preserving religious liberty and freedom of conscience,” said Wilson. “Let us encourage them to join in this vitally important pursuit of freedom of conscience for all.”

Source: © 2012, Adventist News Network.

Source

.