The Grazing Mind

Fifty women from WhiteWave Foods rode their little hearts out this past Sunday during the Venus de Miles bike ride.  All of us wore our WhiteWave inspired jerseys and some wore tutus too. Some of us rode 33 miles, others rode 51, 67 or even 100!

It was an incredible event and a ton of fun. Count me in for next year.

Thanks to all the riders, sponsors, event-organizers, volunteers and those who cheered us on along the way. Every single one of you made this year’s event a truly memorable one.

Check out some of the video footage and other pics from the event below:

The whole Crew (big thanks to Eric, there in the middle, who captured the video)

When I learned Jill Tanner, a very talented member of our Creative Services team, was designing the WhiteWave bike jerseys for the upcoming Venus de Miles bike ride, I knew I had to sign up.

 Here’s the thing though, I hadn’t been on a road bike in years, so despite my enthusiasm for the cool jersey — the rest felt really overwhelming. But last Sunday a nice thing happened. My husband led me on a 13-mile bike ride as a precursor to Venus and in a shocking twist of events two things occurred. First, I didn’t yell at my husband.

He was great, giving me pointers, but not in a condescending-I’m-a-know-it-all-lifelong-cyclist kind of way. He was calm, patient and, well…helpful. Therefore, the other thing that happened was I actually enjoyed it.

Good thing. I’m signed up to ride the 33-mile course. There are 51 other women at WhiteWave participating — some of whom are far more ambitious than I am and have signed up to ride the 50-mile course. Others are courageous enough to ride the 100-mile course. The 52 of us nearly double the number of WhiteWave women who participated last year.

Venus de Miles is the only all-female bike ride in Colorado and it’s taking place this Sunday. The website emphasizes that this is not a “race” — rather a “celebration of sisterhood.” I grew up with two older brothers so I’m not sure what that means, but I’ve heard this ride includes men dressed in drag, great food, drink and even pedicures.  If all that stuff equates to “sisterhood” I’m all in.

The ride is not only about women riding bikes and guys in drag. It’s to raise money for a great cause — Greenhouse Scholars. Pete Burridge and a team of professionals from the branding and marketing firm Greenhouse Partners created this non-profit group seven years ago and have already begin making an impact among low-income college students. Go Greenhouse Scholars!

(And in true WhiteWave fashion, our team has already raised $1,535 for this incredible cause. Dig that!)

Most of us spend a lot of time at work. So, it’s natural for work to cross into our personal lives. At WhiteWave, we have a set of values to which we often refer to help guide business decisions. One of those in particular is quite meaningful to me both in work and in life: The discipline to meet our own expectations.

For whatever reason, I have often struggled with accomplishing certain things that I say  I really want to do. We all talk about things we want to do and sometimes don’t end up getting around to them, but in the past for some reason I didn’t seem to mind disappointing myself.

This year, I was determined to change that, and the WWF value helped me focus. One of my expectations for the summer was to accomplish a big hike, specifically, a “14er” – one that takes you at or above 14,000 feet. Early in the summer, I set a date with a few friends who also work at WhiteWave and together we made it happen.

I went, I hiked, and even more than the views, the satisfaction of meeting my own expectations made it one of the best days of my summer.

Man, it’s like 900 degrees in Broomfield, Colo. today. Thankfully, our friends at Sweet Cow Ice Cream stopped by to help us cope with the heat…

Last week, I was fortunate enough to attend my first LOHAS (Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability) Forum in Boulder.  It was an informative, inspirational and action-packed couple of days, reminding me why I’m so passionate about this industry. A few highlights:

• Steve French and Gwynne Rogers from the Natural Marketing Institute gave an informative talk on the latest consumer trends.  A key takeaway was that while recent economic challenges have increased most consumers’ price sensitivity, committment to healthy lifestyles and healthy foods hasn’t changed.

• An all-star panel discussed GMO Awareness in our food, including UNFI founder Michael Funk, Whole Foods SVP Michael Besancon, and Silk GM Craig Shiesley.  This lively discussion was highlighted by Shiesley’s announcement that all Silk beverage products have been officially verified by the Non-GMO Project.

• Author Dan Millman gave an inspirational talk regarding his latest book, The Four Purposes of Life, in which he shared some valuable life lessons.  These included: (1) failure is a stepping stone towards learning, (2) breakthroughs come after our most difficult periods, and (3) lessons tend to repeat themselves until we learn them.

LOHAS Forum leader Ted Ning does an excellent job pulling together a varied panel of mind-opening presenters, and playing emcee.  I left LOHAS inspired to continue working to make a difference, proud to be a part of WhiteWave, and looking forward to next year’s conference.

Last March we discussed our excitement surrounding a nearby traffic expansion project; one set to bring new bike and walking paths, expanded lanes and bus rapid transit to a stretch of road frequented by most WhiteWave employees. Once completed, getting to and from our building via bike, bus or car pool is going to be that much easier. But during construction, it won’t matter what you’re driving… commuting on the U.S. 36 highway is going to be rough.

The good news is that construction isn’t set to begin until next year, but we’re getting a head start just to be sure we’re ready. Today WhiteWavers are being encouraged to use alternative routes via bus, and their company-issued Eco Passes. We’ve even got a new bus stop right outside our building.

Written by Adam Bratter:
Last year my family moved into a new house. A year later, we can happily say we’ve created a home in the midst of really great community. To me, community implies shared values, which are cultivated, fostered, and embodied. This past weekend, members of my community and a few local businesses in Lafayette, Colo. stepped up and pitched in for a morning of volunteer work. About 20 or so members of the community, plus all the kiddos, spent the morning clearing out tons of old debris and trash along a popular Boulder County open space trail that’s shared and enjoyed by the whole community. Cannon Mine coffee shop, Martino’s pizza, Meritage Homes, and Cinema Realty all generously provided refreshments and snacks to keep us well fueled. It was an inspiring and very impactful collective effort. Check out these pictures of the things we cleared out:

Here at WhiteWave we are fortunate to foster a strong community of employees with shared values, for which I am truly grateful. In fact, today marks the kick-off of our annual company-wide food drive in support of Community Food Share, an organization integral to our local communities in both Boulder and Broomfield counties, and part of the national Feeding America network of Food Banks.

Being a food company, food security is a shared value that we are all committed to. Over the next two weeks our employee community will put our “Values in Action” by hosting over 30 fundraising events including bake sales, raffles, contests, and a kickball tournament to help us meet our goal of 100% employee participation. I’m filled with inspiration already and it’s only the first day of our drive.

It’s a comforting feeling for me to know that I am surrounded, both at home and at work, by people who truly embody the essence of community.

I love Colorado and the experiences it brings to my life.

One of those experiences is skiing. I was a first-time snowboarder as an adult, which can be challenging. Being a fierce competitor and overall pretty impatient person, I often left the mountain in frustration. Everyone kept telling me “one day it will all come together – just keep at it.”

That faithful day finally arrived a couple weeks ago in one of my favorite places – Vail, Colorado. Vail Mountain is not only beautiful, but provides a scale that most mountains don’t offer. Over three days, we rode through powder, bumps, trees, and woops on both steep runs and slow roads. For the first time, I loved snowboarding and had a great time.

Also, throughout that weekend, I noticed how many companies and restaurants are making small changes in the hopes that one day it will all come together.

• Our hotel offered a free breakfast, with compostable cups and flatware.
• Vail Resorts has a recycling program, featuring various receptacles at each mountain lodge and eatery.  The site of a snow cat hauling about 24 recycling bins was impressive! (Sorry, I just stared rather than snapping a picture).
• The town of Vail also features a recycling program with recycling bins for both paper and plastic appearing alongside trash bins.
• At dinner, we had several local options to choose from. Flame restaurant offered Colorado bison, lamb and venison. Kelly Liken featured trout, quail, lamb and more from Colorado. Side note: Kelly Liken was one of my favorite Top Chef contestants who finished in the final three in season 7.

I’m happy it all came together for me on the mountain. But I’m ecstatic that people are starting to make small choices that will make a big difference for our future.

These past few months at WhiteWave are inspirational and a good reminder of what the holidays are all about. And no, I haven’t drunk the Silk Nog; I am truly inspired by the generosity of my WhiteWave colleagues and what we’ve been able to do, collectively, to make the holidays a little brighter for those in our communities who are less fortunate.

WhiteWave has been very fortunate to have a good year in spite of a challenging economy. So I was pleased to learn that we decided to scale back our holiday party a bit for the second year by giving some of the money we’d normally spend on it to Community Food Share (CFS) – one of our primary non-profit partners who help fight hunger in our area.

The cool thing is we were still able to have a great party to celebrate 2010 and all of our accomplishments, but this small sacrifice will help make a big difference in the lives of those who need our help. In fact, our donation will allow CFS to provide an additional 100,000 meals to Boulder County residents this holiday season. Not to mention, we’ve donated more than $150,000 and 1.5 million pounds of product to CFS so far this year and have volunteered hundreds of hours. Working for a food company, it feels pretty great to know that we play a role in ensuring food security in our own community.

In addition, over the last few weeks, our headquarters lobby has been literally busting at the seams with items collected for local shelters and non-profits. Some of our activities have included:

• Holding a coat and blanket drive to benefit Coats for Colorado and the Boulder Shelter for the Homeless
• Adopting families and children for the Emergency Family Assistance Association, Toys for Tots and Share-A-Gift holiday giving programs
• Sponsoring 120 children from the Mercy Housing “Adopt a Child” program, to extend our holiday giving reach into Denver
• Holding a company-wide raffle (with chance to win front-row parking and snow removal in December) to benefit Attention Homes. One of our execs won and opened the space to a daily silent auction to raise additional funds. (Unfortunately, this year has not been the best to win snow removal, as that would in fact require snow; but in theory, I love this idea!)

In the end, it’s all about the holiday spirit, which I’m pleased to report is alive and well at WhiteWave. Not that such outpouring of generosity is contained to the holidays around here… There is a lot of giving and volunteering that happens here throughout the year. But I can’t help but feel an extreme sense of pride for what we were able to do to help those in our communities have a safer, warmer, happier and healthier holiday.

What has inspired YOU this holiday season? I’d love to hear your stories.

Arrived to work today and found our friends from Green Garage set up and ready to provide eco-tune ups for the people of WhiteWave.

Here’s how they describe themselves: “We ‘green-tune’ cars to run cleaner, greener and cheaper and all while ‘fixing’ the whole bad automotive service experience. We find proven, sustainable, energy saving automotive maintenance and repair related products. And we can keep you out of stale gas smelling waiting rooms with their bad coffee and old magazines through our convenient consumer valet and corporate mobile on site services.”

Just scheduled my oil change… Click here to learn more.