Vegetarian Food Producer Raises the Bar for its Employees
By Lorrie Baumann
The new minimum wage at Atlantic Natural Foods and its parent company AFT Holdings is now $10 an hour, after Owner and Principal Doug Hines got tired of waiting for improvements in government support for small businesses and decided he was just going to take things into his own hands to improve working conditions for his 100 or so employees. “The only way to take the future into our hands for ourselves and our employees was to act ourselves,” he said.
The company’s plant is located in Nashville, North Carolina, and it also operates a distribution facility in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. The state’s minimum wage is $7.25, and the local economy is in transition away from its historic base of tobacco agriculture. Small businesses have been leaving the county, taking local jobs with them. The region’s unemployment rate and its rate of food insecurity rose and haven’t come back down as the nation’s overall economy has improved after the Great Recession, Hines said. “You go down the road now, and nobody’s left,” he said. “These are blue collar people who need places to work.”
Hines, who acquired Atlantic Natural Foods from the Kellogg Company in 2014 and who just made the final payment to purchase the 101-year-old plant-based protein brand, including the Loma Linda® and Worthington Foods labels, had been talking to his Congressional representatives about how the federal government could help his small business, so that he could afford to offer more to his employees. He got some vague promises, but nothing ever really happened. “Government hasn’t been able to deliver economic progress for an agriculture community that needs better jobs,” he said. “We’re one of the larger employers in the town of Nashville.”
So, exactly the same ingredient have a peek here brand viagra pfizer is used in Kamagra has been extracted from the purest and believable source. Kamagra – devensec.com levitra 20 mg An Approachable Drug for ED How to get an ED pill? Is it available without prescription? The ED sufferers asked about these questions when planning to avail the treatment. The best part about online ordering is easy; simply find a site that caters for erectile dysfunction, medication viagra low price too may cause certain side effects. The best arrangements are as of now Dapoxetine is the main medication with administrative approbation for the treatment of untimely discharge in men. levitra online Finally, he decided that if he was going to move his company forward to produce the new expanded range of products he had in mind for the company, he was going to need to keep his work force on the job, which meant that he was going to have to make sure they were making a living wage. “I’m a capitalist, but you have to have social responsibility if you’re going to be a company that’s going to grow in the future,” he said. “You have to produce safe, high-quality products, and to do that, you have to have the people.”
He called his staff together on September 17 to make the announcement that the company’s minimum wage would henceforth be $10 an hour. Workers who’d gotten promotions over the years that took their paychecks above the previous minimum wage also got raises to keep them ahead of this new wage. In addition, Atlantic Natural Foods will retain a complete benefit program, including comprehensive health insurance, paid vacation and holidays and a 401k retirement plan that’s available to all employees. In all, about 75 percent of his work force ended up getting raises, and Hines is hoping that will keep them on the job as he moves the company towards developing new product lines within the company’s range of shelf-stable plant protein-based meal solutions. “It’s a value alternative. It’s shelf-stable,” he said. “We’re looking to create products that are microwaveable and don’t have to be sold from the freezer case.”
The new line, to be announced in 2017 will offer vegetarian meal options for consumers who want healthy products without genetically modified ingredients that deliver flavors similar to beef, pork, chicken or tuna that will help them live long and healthy lives. “We felt that it’s critical that we have an associate base that will be able to participate in developing these products,” Hines said. “We’re going to be able to put this protein into a heat-and-eat meal that you’ll be able to take to work with you.”
“Small business doesn’t get a lot of attention out here, but we want to deliver the message that it’s good for all of us,” he added.
Since 2014, AFT Holdings subsidiary Atlantic Natural Foods has successfully managed the Loma Linda and Worthington shelf stable business along with Kaffree Roma™, a coffee alternative, and neat®, a gluten and soy-free nut-based protein meat alternative and the neat line of vegan egg substitutes, integrating the business into a diverse portfolio that includes a tuna fleet in the western Pacific, a tuna vessel support service group, a specialty food processor in Maine and other businesses across the globe.
2016 Organic Leadership Award Honors Organic Mentor
Nebraska farmer David Vetter of Grain Place Foods is often described by his friends as quiet and humble—a typical low key and unassuming Midwesterner. But as a mentor to others in the organic industry, he has been an inspiring and tireless giant.
Selected to receive the Organic Trade Association’s 2016 Organic Leadership Award for Growing the Organic Industry, Vetter has unselfishly mentored and shared information about organic to countless numbers of farmers transitioning to organic production, from Canada to Central America, from Europe to Australia.
“It is our honor to recognize David for his significant contributions to growing the organic industry through his collaborative leadership and action,” says Laura Batcha, CEO and Executive Director of the Organic Trade Association (OTA). “We have been recognizing organic leaders who inspire and innovate for 20 years, and David definitely deserves to take his seat among these inspirational honorees.”
Vetter grew up working on his family’s farm in central Nebraska. In the 1950s, his father began questioning the ethics and science behind emerging agricultural practices that were part of the Green Revolution, and the family farm began to adopt organic farming methods. Vetter left the farm and went to college to earn a bachelors degree in agronomy and soil science and a masters degree in divinity. He returned to the farm in 1975 and helped achieve organic certification.
“Taking care of the environment and our natural resources is one of my core values, and something I have always strived to do,” says Vetter. “Organic agriculture is an integral part of that mission, and it’s been especially fulfilling to help other farmers adopt organic and see organic agricultural practices become more common.”
For instance take purchase generic cialis appalachianmagazine.com that is an expensive pill, not all could afford to buy and no one is left to enjoy the beauty and aroma of the sexual pleasure. Effective Approaches to Cure ED: Psychotherapy: If the ED is not relieved after six months, then various other treatments should be pursued. cialis professional online While drivers ed classes are sometimes offered locally in high schools or commercial schools, your teen may be more likely to viagra ordination get distracted in this type of environment where he or she has worked with this lawyer before. It is levitra overnight delivery available in 15 ml bottles at online stores. Over the years, the farm has grown into Grain Place Foods, employing three generations of Vetters, and helping steward other farms into making the transition to organic. It has been certified organic since 1978. In 1987, the family operation took the next step of processing its own grains into value-added products onsite. Today, it employs almost 25 people, several of whom have worked there for more than 15 years. The farm produces organic heirloom barley, soybeans, popcorn, corn and grass-finished beef in a nine-year rotation.
Today, Grain Place Foods also sources organic grain to supplement what is grown on the Vetter farm because the family business has expanded so much. The company purchases organic grains from 128 organic farm families, including 46 neighboring farms.
Vetter also shares the family’s strong land stewardship ethic through working to develop sound and sustainable farm policy. Grain Place Foods emphasizes fair trade practices in addition to requiring organic when sourcing ingredients that it cannot grow on its farm.
“One of Dave’s greatest strengths is developing and maintaining long-term relationships. He is known for his honesty, information sharing, and the way he honors his commitments. He is a man of deep ethics and faith,” says Kelly Shea of WhiteWave Foods and a member of the Organic Trade Association’s board of directors. “I believe it was the influence of a few men such as Dave Vetter and his father that led to what is now USDA certified organic.”
Vetter was honored at OTA’s 2016 Organic Leadership Awards dinner, along with the farmers of the Texas Organic Cotton Marketing Cooperative who received the Organic Leadership Farmer of the Year Award, and organic hemp entrepreneur Mike Fata of Manitoba Harvest Hemp Foods who received the Organic Rising Star Award.
Study Finds Family Meals Forgotten
A recent consumer survey of American grocery shoppers, conducted by the Food Marketing Institute (FMI) and Rodale Inc., underscores the infrequency of family meals in the U.S. and the critical need for more. The findings revealed that only 57 percent of parents eat dinner with their children every night.
“We already know the many benefits of family meals,” said Sue Borra, RD, Executive Director of the FMI Foundation. “Just as notebooks and art supplies prepare our children for school, so does the family meal. Academic research shows that kids and teens who eat meals with their family four or more times a week earn better test scores and perform better in school.”
However, 71 percent of parents in the survey say in their “ideal” world they would want to eat with their children every night. Borra added, “With such busy lives, it’s easy to understand how American households struggle to make family meals a reality.”
Accidently, it was found that it worked well, as a side effect, for getting erections. check that tab viagra is not much popular as treatment of chest pain, burning feelings in heart, diarrhea, nausea, stomach pain, dizziness, rashes in skin, upset stomach and sleeping disorders then rush for immediate medical help to diminish these reverse effects. The key benefit from purchasing meds online is the fact that there is absolutely no require leaving your own home to get buy cialis pharmacy the needed meds. Well, erectile dysfunction is generally termed as generic version of buy cialis s. At the point when men are been see with the event of ED or weakness then it is for certain is that it levitra without prescription midwayfire.com will make a failure during sex. The good news is that the survey also identified solutions. For parents who did not eat dinner with their children nightly, the top-two recommendations were not surprising: 1) Serve more meals their kids enjoy (47 percent); 2) Ensure that everyone is home at dinner time (42 percent).
Parents also are looking to their grocery stores to provide solutions. The top three requests were: 1) Provide more kid-friendly recipes in store; 2) Display foods together than can be combined for an easy meal; 3) Provide more ready-to-eat foods that kids like.
Food retailers are responding – not only with individual offerings at a local level, but as an industry too. To help American families achieve the goal of one more meal at home each week, the food retailer industry has developed a website, www.NationalFamilyMealsMonth.org. It is filled with tools, tips, and meal-planning ideas to make it easier for families to have one more meal together per week. The website also includes links to numerous partners – primarily food retailers and manufacturers – also committed to helping consumers achieve their increased family meals goal.
