The Grazing Mind

The three rules of dumpster diving:

1. Never take more than you need… unless you find it a good home

2. First ones to the dumpster have first dibs… but you always gotta share

3. Leave it cleaner than you found it

These rules were developed by the makers of Dive!; a documentary that follows filmmaker Jeremy Seifert and friends as they dumpster dive in the back alleys and gated garbage receptacles of Los Angeles’ supermarkets. In the process, they salvage thousands of dollars worth of good, edible food. But after a while of feeding his own family, Jeremy begins to question why this food isn’t finding room on the plates of more people that need it. He underscores this important question with an overwhelming statistic:  “Every year in America we throw away 96 billion pounds of food. Which means we’re feeding our landfills as much we’re feeding our country”.

Since releasing the film, Jeremy and crew have been on a grassroots crusade to fix the problem. Their message is simple: Take the food we throw out – give it to people who can’t afford it. Unfortunately, there isn’t an easy way to do that.

Just about every grocery store in America is required by law to take food off the shelf after a certain amount of time. That doesn’t mean the food is rotten, though, or that grocery stores have to toss good food in the garbage bin.  Many retailers, in fact, have developed great programs to get this food to nearby food banks. But they can’t do it every day. To do so would be a massive undertaking requiring the support of all stakeholders: food companies, retailers, non-profits, consumers and government.

As a food company, we know we play an important role in creating a solution, which is why last week we invited the makers of Dive! and Congressman Jared Polis (who’s doing some great things in the realm of ending childhood hunger) to screen the film and discuss ideas around finding a solution. Some great ideas were presented, a healthy discussion ensued, and moving forward we’ve all committed to keep the dialogue going not just among the Dive! folks, WhiteWave and Congressman Polis, but with all our contacts across government, the retailers we work with and consumers who buy our products.

Stay tuned to TGM for more updates on how this project progresses, and in the meantime you should definitely check out Dive!. You should probably “Like” their Facebook page too…

A few weeks ago, we talked about Silk’s decision to add some natural products to its portfolio. The post led to a lively discussion on our Facebook page, which generated a few additional questions and concerns that we’d like to address here.

So first off, what does “Natural” really mean?

There is no unified definition or regulation of what “natural” means in the food industry, so we created our own strict definition for our products. To Silk, The term “natural” means all the soybeans used in our products aren not genetically modified in any way. From seed to carton, our beans are put through four testing procedures to ensure they are GMO-free. And just yesterday we announced that Silk is officially part of the Non-GMO Project’s Product Verification Program. The Non-GMO Project is the nation’s first system designed to test whether a product has met defined standards for the presence of GMOs, providing third party verification that the best practices of GMO avoidance are in use. - you’ll start seeing their logo on our packaging soon. And again, we still offer organic options in three of our most popular flavors – original, vanilla and unsweetened.

Great, but why can’t I find your organic options at my grocery store?

If you can’t find Silk Organic at your usual haunt (or any other product for that matter), you have a few options. 1. Talk to the store manager, and ask them to start carrying the products you want. We unfortunately can’t control who carries what, but you (the one spending money at the store) can. 2. Check out our product locater. We sell three times as much organic soymilk as all of our competitors combined, so chances are, there’s a store nearby that has what you’re looking for.

How can I be sure that your beans are sourced from farms in the U.S.

Currently, you have to take our word for it. Not good enough? We absolutely agree. By the end of this year, we will provide you with complete traceability regarding the source of our soybeans. You’ll be able to take your Silk cartons, enter a number into our website and track where the beans were grown and harvested.

Stay tuned to The Grazing Mind for updates on all our products.

Really excited to be partnering with brands like LG, Ford and Earthbound Farms this week, as part of The Green House project just down the way in Boulder. The “smart living” program brings together influential journalists from all over the country, and puts them up in a specially outfitted, net-zero Smart House for three days at a time. During the experience these guys get to go about their day-to-day routine with the help of a variety of products, services and technology that are good for your health, good for your wallet and good for the environment.

The Smart House is also blending a variety of companies and brands that don’t usually cross paths (Not often that soymilk and plasma TVs come together… on purpose anyway), but that’s actually one of the cooler parts of the program. The diverse group of company sponsors and products will allow for a complete “smart living” experience. How you cook, how you drive, how you do the laundry, how you watch TV, etc. This house can show you how to do it better.

Wanna see more? Me too.

On Wednesday (8/18), I’ll be tagging along with the group and featuring snippets from the day here on TGM….

We’ve talked about the Wafe Café a couple times here on TGM.  It’s easily one of the things I love most about working in our headquarters building. Having access to a beautiful salad bar with fresh organic veggies every day can’t be beat. (Okay, neither can the pizza bar, grill station or deli, but I digress.)

Yesterday, we held a meeting for all employees. We do that every quarter. Our president kicks off the meetings, and then various employees provide updates on their respective pieces of the business. It’s a cool way to find out what’s going on at the company. Also cool, the BBQ out back after the meeting. It was catered by our fabulous folks in the Wave Café and in keeping with our commitment to zero-waste recycling we made sure Eco-Cycle zero-waste stations were prominent so that employees could dispose of their lunch scraps outside – just like they do every day at the café and in our break rooms.

The neat thing is Eco-Cycle captured and provide a snapshot of the benefits of our recycling and composting efforts just for that single lunch (they track this stuff for us annually, too.) Get this, just for that one lunch, our employees:

• Recovered 146 pounds of materials – that’s 97% of everything we discarded!
• Saved 2 gallons of gasoline in energy savings
• Saved 310 pounds of greenhouse gas emissions; and
• Avoided 46 pounds of substances that threaten human health

Now that’s something to chew on.

Back in the ‘70s, when WhiteWave first started out, our mission was to bring soy to the masses. The biggest issue we faced then wasn’t competition, it was getting people to embrace soy as an alternative to dairy. None of that has changed. We are pioneers, who created and are now evolving and growing the category. But growth doesn’t come without growing pains. Don’t get me wrong, the more plant and soy-based products people consume, the more proud we are of our work. It means that we’ve succeeded in helping people make better, healthier choices. But it also means we now have to compete with other companies.

It’s always been our goal to grow the soymilk category, but it’s also our goal to maintain our leadership position in the category, something we set in motion over 30 years ago, and we’re going to protect it. But this does raise an important question – did we make the right decision adding all-natural options to our Silk Soymilk portfolio?

The answer is simple. Maintaining that leadership position depends on increasing the access people have to our products. This means putting Silk products on more shelves in more stores. It also means making our products affordable. Sourcing US-based all-organic beans would have required increasing our prices. And increasing our prices, especially in this economy, would have made it hard for people to buy our soymilk. Not all our consumers, but some. More importantly, making Silk difficult to purchase would have prevented new people from choosing our product or even entering the marketplace at all.

It’s important to note that the all-natural Silk options are an addition to our portfolio. What does that mean? Well, Natural to us means our beans are NON-gmo and have no artifical colors or flavors. We also wanted to keep Silk sustainable, so we only source our soybeans in the U.S. We still offer organic versions of three of our most popular flavors, with our unsweetened soymilk now exclusively organic. It’s also worth noting that we sell more organic soymilk than all of our competitors combined, three times as much actually. Every soybean we source comes from here in the US. In the coming year, our products will carry the Non-GMO Project-verified seal, and soon people will have the ability to track the sources of the soybeans in their Silk products on our website.

Stay tuned to The Grazing Mind, as we’ll be taking a closer look in the next few weeks at our Silk products, the sources we carefully choose and the partnerships that will help us continue to be the number one brand of soymilk in the U.S.

Check this out, from NAU’s The Thought Kitchen, who just announced their Grant for Change winner – Truck Farm

written by Luana Hancock

I work for WhiteWave and my husband for Chipotle Mexican Grill—two Colorado-based food companies that have missions aimed at changing the way people think about and eat food. This common ground inspires lots of lively conversations about food at our house (usually enjoyed over a delicious meal, of course). We talk about how our food choices impact our health, overall wellbeing/happiness, environment, world economies, cultures, and access. One question my husband and I continue to come back to, though, is whether or not big is bad.

Horizon, one of our brands at WhiteWave, is a great answer to this question. Horizion all started with a small cooperative of organic dairy farms in 1991. As the company grew, our bigger size didn’t prevent us from focusing on the health of families and our planet. In fact, it actually allowed us to help more people get access to more organic dairy products. It also provided more opportunities for farmers. Over the past 19 years or so, WhiteWave and Horizon have helped farms transition to organic practices through education, scholarships and financial support. We’ve converted hundreds of thousands of acres to organic farmland, which uses methods and materials that lower the impact to the environment. Today, we work with more than 500 organic family farms across the country.

Similarly, Chipotle recently opened its 1000^th restaurant, which totally blows my mind. The little burrito joint that CEO Steve Ells opened back in ’93 to fund the “real restaurant” that he—as a classically trained chef—aspired to have, struck a chord with diners that still drives Chipotle’s success today. In a nutshell, you get super tasty, flavorful food for not very much money. Add to that their commitment to sourcing sustainably produced ingredients and you’ve got quite a combo. For example, they were the first national restaurant company to commit to serving naturally raised meat. Today, Chipotle’s commitment to smart, healthy and sustainable practices translates to 75 million pounds of naturally raised meat this year alone. In other words, by virtue of its size, Chipotle, like WhiteWave’s Horizon brand, has provided more opportunities to more farmers to viably farm in a way that’s more sustainable.

Clearly these two companies are a part of my life. Not only is my livelihood tied to them, but they’ve also helped shape my own thoughts and beliefs on what food means to people and the role companies can play. This is not to say that any company, like any person for that matter, is perfect or without growing pains. But the concept that the size of a company, or its ability to grow, automatically determines its value to society is a limiting one. Big isn’t necessarily bad. In the case of WhiteWave and Chipotle, the ability to scale up good food can actually drive meaningful change. I’m proud to be part of that.

Awhile back we did a little reporting on Impact Day, WhiteWave’s first annual all-company volunteer event. Today, we’re pleased to welcome a guest blogger from one of the organizations we supported. Below, Julie Malinsky from Feed Denver talks about the work her organization does in addressing an issue that has only just recently gotten more attention: Food Deserts.

Food Deserts are areas in the city where access to fresh, healthy food is limited.  The USDA and Economic Research Service estimates that of all households in the United States, 2.3 million people live more than a mile from a supermarket and do not have access to a vehicle; and an additional 3.2 million people live between one half mile to a mile from a grocer without access to a vehicle.  Often these are urban core areas characterized by higher levels of racial segregation and greater income inequality.  We all know these areas — stretches of road where concrete meets barbed wire fences and the only brightly colored thing is a blaring Burger King marquee.  The people living in these communities often suffer the consequences of economic curtailment, with higher incidences of health problems related to diet, and a lower standard of living based upon their lack of good quality, nutritious food choices.

Many supermarkets and other food retailers simply do not wish to locate in these areas because of the economic risks associated with a lower income population.  But rather than re-inventing the capitalist wheel, perhaps the solution lies in a different direction?  Feed Denver Urban Farms and Markets is a non-profit with some good ideas on how to address this situation.  This spring we received a grant from the City of Denver to locate a small local farm on an unused parking lot in northeast Denver.  The farm is located at 42nd and Steele in a neighborhood known as Swansea, which is a classic example of a food desert.

In late May, with the help of about 15 WhiteWave volunteers, the parking lot in Swansea was transformed from derelict to fertile.  Nearly 35 yards of compost and mulch was shoveled, pushed, carried, and dumped to create mounds for planting and cool wood paths between the rows of compost.  Since then, everything from squash to tomatoes has been planted and the farm is well on its way to becoming vibrant. It will help feed the local residents with affordable fresh organic produce, provide a safe community gathering spot, and it will be used to train local youth and adults on how to farm.  The farm will eventually create real jobs and soon will expand its production with the addition of three greenhouses designed and built by Architecture for Humanity.  With the addition of the greenhouses, the Feed Denver farm at 42nd and Steele could potentially supply food for hundreds of people year-round; meanwhile, local people will have opportunities to learn and become involved with the project.  A market is planned in the coming weeks, and Feed Denver is continuing to provide programs for youth interested in farming.  It is a small parking lot with big ideas and an even bigger enthusiasm to change how we think of food equality in the Denver metro area.

Feed Denver’s mission is to create viable urban agriculture in the city.  Along the way, we hope to green up some of our urban spaces, provide access to those without, and produce beautiful food and spaces along the way.  Feed Denver is a regional training center for McArthur Genius Grant award winner Will Allen of Milwaukee’s Growing Power.  You can explore more at www.Feeddenver.com, www.feeddenver.blogspot.com, or www.growingpower.org.

Julie Malinsky is Feed Denver’s Jill of all trades and a blossoming writer; www.hapticityandcitizen.blogspot.com

Adding to my post from last week, here’s just another great example of how building awareness is working to change the future of food… except in this case, these guys are bringing that awareness to you, and parking it right next to the hot dog cart.

The Mobile Food Collective is literally an urban garden on wheels, and again, not designed to feed the masses, just wake the masses up to the brilliance of fresh food.

You should really “Like” these guys on Facebook, and if you’re in Chicago, maybe swing by the cart and send us some pictures/video?

Although March 21 marks the first day of spring, it hit Colorado a little late this year. Snow in April is typical, but two snowfalls in May caused a bit of frustration. While the bulk of the snow could be found in higher elevation, the Denver Metro area did see some flakes of its own.

When it finally sprung, around the office I heard buzz of travel plans and summer activities, including camping, hiking competitive runs and more – many of which involving food. Below is what spring brought to my life… and I’m ready for Summer, which starts today by the way…

Living at an elevation of 8,500 feet takes some getting used to. I moved to Conifer, Colo. about three years ago, and quickly learned that snow in May is not uncommon – we moved in on May 18 and welcomed a snowstorm on May 24. The same rung true this year, pictured above, on May 12.

I traveled to Moab, Utah, one of my favorite places in the West, for a camping and four-wheeling trip.

Other than the high winds, we enjoyed the experience and found it a great way to kick off the travel season.

I was never a big runner, but WhiteWave’s involvement in the Bolder BOULDER race inspired me to sign up for my first competitive 10K run. With my only goal being to finish the race running, the enthusiasm around that race made it easy to do…all while enjoying a marshmallow and a piece of bacon here and there from the crowds lining the streets.

You've heard the term "staycation”, right? For mine I took a week’s worth of vacation for a cooking class in Boulder at the Culinary School of the Rockies. My love of cooking has grown over the years, and the class gave me the opportunity to hone my skills as well as enjoy good, whole food with good people.

One of the things I like about WhiteWave is the way employees come together to support one another. On June 5, a handful of us joined employee Rebekah Lyle at a charity run/walk to benefit the Colorado Ovarian Cancer Alliance. In its first year, 1,700 participants helped raise more than $100,000!

Beyond summer vacation plans, I’ve more frequently overheard more conversations about food. Perhaps people get more excited about food in the summer. After all, fresh fruits and vegetables make for more variety. And, they are readily available at farmers markets.

Colorado has a plethora of farmers markets in season from April through October, which is quite an impressive season considering how often our weather changes.