Creating Partnerships

Building Relationships

Organic Valley, at its core, is all about relationships. A cooperative is a relationship-based way of doing business. Our founding farmers knew that relationships made a sounder foundation for their business than bricks and mortar, and over 20 years later that philosophy continues. Today we have some eco-friendly versions of our own "bricks-and-mortar," but we still put relationships first. Here are some creative ways we've been working with others—and each other—on our sustainable path.

Organic Logistics

CROPP ingredient buttermilk customer, Earth Island Foods, of Chatsworth, CA, is a restaurant, food store, and manufacturer of Follow Your Heart brand products. When Earth Island learned about CROPP’s Organic Logistics transportation network, they asked for help delivering chilled products to Trader Joe’s locations in Illinois and Massachusetts. Delighted with our service, Earth Island recently encouraged Fantasy Cookie, an Organic Valley ingredient butter customer, to ship with Organic Logistics, too.

By combining several smaller shipments into a larger one, all three businesses save money on shipping costs, and reduce fuel use and the greenhouse gas emissions created by wasteful shipping practices. These days when Organic Logistics delivers our milk to Trader Joe’s, we're helping out Earth Island, the earth itself, and occasionally bringing along a Fantasy Cookie.

CRP to Organic: A Natural Transition

In an effort to increase organically farmed acreage in the U.S., CROPP has teamed with Stonyfield Farms, Annie’s Homegrown, and the Environmental Working Group to encourage landowners to convert their land to organic crop production.

In 2008, 1.2 million acres of land expired from the federally-funded Conservation Reserve Program (CRP). We decided to contact all of the landowners whose contracts were expiring. Hundreds of these landowners representing many thousands of acres responded to our outreach effort and are interested in exploring the opportunities that organic farming has to offer. We are supporting the landowners by linking them with nearby organic farmers and providing technical assistance to help them make their fallow land productive in a way that will benefit them, their land, their community, and the organic mission.

Steps to Sustainability

introduction
on the farm
humane animal treatment
operations
water stewardship
employees
partnerships
giving
sustainable trade

Excerpted from the Organic Valley/ CROPP Cooperative 2008 Annual Report.