White Wave's Silk

[Guest guest]

There has been some confusion and accusations about the White Wave

company, particularly about their use of dairy machinery. I found

this article on www.vegsource.com and thought it might clear up some

of these supposed accusations.

 

Raquela

 

" The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by

the way its animals are reared. "

Mahatma Gandhi

 

 

White Wave & Chocolate Silk

by Jeff & Sabrina Nelson

 

September 18, 2001 -- People have written to us asking about White

Wave recently, the company that makes Silk soymilk, and we'd like to

give our perspective.

 

Our view boils down to this: We feel that White Wave is a terrific

company that makes great products, and they deserve every bit of

success they've garnered.

 

We have met the president, Steve Demos, and a number of people who

work for White Wave, and we feel these are decent, honest people. We

have never received any advertising dollars from Silk, by the way, or

any consideration from White Wave in any form.

 

We had a few conversations with an executive with White Wave about

certain issues people have recently written to us about. We found

White Wave to be credible and truthful. We are sharing our opinions

on this issue because we believe that if you're evaluating or

criticizing a company, vegetarian or otherwise, being fair is of

crucial importance.

 

Specifically, we investigated five issues surrounding White Wave:

• their investors

• a voluntary product recall last year

• OSHA fines from February 2000

• the source of their chocolate, and

• allegations that White Wave lied in a press release last

year.

 

Investors

 

A company called Dean Foods, which produces dairy products, is an

investor in White Wave. A large company called SUIZA, which also

markets dairy and soymilk products, wants to merge with Dean. This

possible merger is currently before the US Justice Department. White

Wave has said they do not want their stock to be transferred to

SUIZA, and they have a clause in their agreement with Dean Foods

which gives them the right to repurchase their stock if Dean were to

merge with a company which has a competing soymilk product, as SUIZA

does.

 

In any case, we find it in no way offensive that a dairy company

like Dean Foods has opted to diversify into soymilk products like

White Wave. This could be a good sign when a dairy business is

investing in what they perceive as a growing market -- non-dairy

soymilk beverages. In fact, we WANT dairy companies to change their

ways. We also want their distribution capabilities to be put to work

for good veg products, making them more readily available to

consumers. After all, consumers can't try it if they can't buy it.

So this is a non-issue for us.

 

Voluntary Product Recall for Silk

 

In August of 2000, White Wave issued a recall of a batch of

soymilk in Canada because White Wave's own stringent testing

procedures had discovered traces of dairy in the product. The dairy

contamination was caught by the company itself as part of its

standard quality assurance practices, prompting the company to issue

an immediate voluntary recall of that batch. We feel their conduct in

this instance was exemplary.

 

The reason there were traces of dairy in this particular batch is

that White Wave uses equipment to process its soymilk which is also

used by another company to process dairy products. The machines are

cleaned and tested before White Wave uses them, and the product is

tested to insure there is no trace of dairy. In the 12 months since

the Canadian recall, White Wave has had no other recalls.

 

How do we feel about White Wave sharing processing equipment with

dairy producers? It's clean. That's main thing that matters to us. It

also makes it affordable for White Wave to put out a great product to

many outlets, and at an affordable price for consumers.

 

It is not unusual for veg companies to share equipment with dairy

processors, since many can't afford to own this kind of equipment on

their own. Moreover, we eat out at restaurants, especially vegetarian

restaurants. Although we're vegan, we use the silverware, plates and

glasses which may have been used by other customers to eat dairy

products or eggs. This is not a problem for us because the dinnerware

has been cleaned before we use it. The same goes for the pots and

pans which our vegan food may be cooked in at a restaurant. The same

pot may have been used to cook something with dairy products, but

since it's been cleaned before it's used to cook our food -- just as

White Wave cleans its equipment before making Silk -- it's not a

problem for us.

 

OSHA Fines

 

We were also told that White Wave had been fined $100,000

for " willful " and " serious " violations by the Occupational Safety and

Health Administration (OSHA).

 

On investigation we found that the cited OSHA violations (for such

things as not inspecting a hoist for defects and failing to have

proper electrical circuit breakers in certain areas or required

hearing or eye protection for some employees) were remedied by White

Wave within 7 days of OSHA's inspection (OSHA had given them 15 days

to fix the problems).

 

White Wave also appealed OSHA's findings, and the OSHA fine was

reduced from $100,000 to $33,750, and the violations which had

initially been listed as " willful " were downgraded to " serious. " The

violations in question took place in February of 2000, about 19

months ago.

 

This information is publicly available on OSHA's website, which

shows no violations by White Wave since then.

If being cited by OSHA is grounds for boycotting a company, then we

would have to call for boycotts of Morning Star, Whole Foods, Earth's

Best vegan organic baby food, and Jamba Juice -- all of which appear

from quick searches on OSHA's site to have been cited at one time or

another.

 

In fact, most veg and vegan companies have never even been

inspected by OSHA because they are too small an operation or no one

has made a complaint which could trigger a worker safety inspection.

 

Source of Silk Chocolate

 

We received a few emails from people claiming that chocolate used

in Silk is grown on slave plantations on Africa's Ivory Coast.

 

However, no one has provided a shred of evidence that this is

true. It appears to be little more than a baffling Internet rumor no

one can substantiate.

 

We asked Silk about this rumor and they said that they are very

concerned about the issue of slave labor, and would never knowingly

purchase chocolate produced under such conditions. They said this

accusation is false, that this would be the opposite of everything

their company stands for.

 

We will soon be featuring a fascinating article on VegSource on

the slave labor issue, but as far as White Wave purchasing slave

labor chocolate, they say it is simply not true. Just as we would do

for anyone, we give White Wave the benefit of being presumed innocent

until proven guilty. And again, we were unable to find any evidence

whatsoever that White Wave uses chocolate produced by slave labor.

 

White Wave Lies in Press Release?

 

There is also a rumor apparently circulating that White Wave put

out a false press release. The press release is reported to have

stated that in a consumer test, White Wave was preferred to Hershey's

chocolate cow's milk by 100% of consumers. This is claimed to be a

lie, apparently, because allegedly the test was not administed

on " consumers " but on a group which is employed by Good Housekeeping.

In other words, White Wave was not preferred by " consumers " but by an

independent testing team at Good Housekeeping.

 

However we are unable to confirm that White Wave *did* lie,

because no one has been able to provide us with a copy of the

allegedly false press release and the other infomation which would

show it to be false.

 

All we were able to find was this quote from an article about

White Wave: " ...the Silk chocolate soymilk brand beat Hershey's

chocolate milk in a taste test conducted by Good Housekeeping

magazine earlier this year. "

 

So at this point we can't confirm or even evaluate this Internet

rumor.

 

Frankly, even if this were be shown to be true, if this were the

most grave " lie " that could be dug up on White Wave or their PR

company, this is clearly not on the scale of the kind of lies put out

by Monsanto, the dairy or beef industry. This seems to us to be

making a mountain out of a molehill. There is no comparison to the

puffery of this alleged White Wave " lie " (that " consumers " preferred

the taste when it was actually " Good Housekeeping consumer testers "

which preferred it) and the dangerous, nefarious deceit of some of

the food and chemical industry.

 

This accusation against White Wave sounds more like an argument

about semantics than any real issue. But again, even on locating the

source of the rumor, we were unable to obtain any documentation to

evaluate or confirm it.

 

The irony of leveling specious allegations against White Wave is

that the truth appears to be this is a company which operates with

integrity and is trying to improve life on the planet, not harm it.

Here is some interesting background about White Wave, from their

website:

 

In 1977, after traveling through India and other parts of the east

for three years, and spending eight weeks meditating in California,

Steve Demos founded White Wave. He began by making tofu in a bucket

and delivering it to local stores in a little red wagon. Really. But

making soyfoods that actually taste great, coupled with Steve's

entrepreneurial talents and his belief in " business without guilt, "

has made White Wave one of the largest manufacturers of soyfoods in

the country, and we're growing at an annual rate of 20 percent.

 

In 1996, we introduced Silk (the first nationally distributed,

refrigerated soy beverage) on the hunch that Americans were thirsty

for a healthy, great-tasting milk alternative. We thought that if

people were able to buy soymilk in a convenient carton, right from

the refrigerated section of their regular grocery store, they would.

And once they tried it, they'd see just how good it tastes and how

easy it is to incorporate soy into their diets. Silk is now the

fastest-growing soymilk on the market and the top-selling fresh

soymilk, proving that playing a hunch sometimes pays off!