LAGUNA NIGUEL, CALIF. — Clif Bar & Co. has a unique business model, based on five bottom lines: sustaining the business, brands, people, community and planet.
The “sustaining the planet” aspiration includes the company’s mantra to “think like a tree,” scripted on a wall at Clif Bar’s headquarters in Emeryville, Calif.
“Trees run on renewable energy, recycle all waste, and sustain and improve the places they grow. Why can’t the work we do in the baking industry follow this vision?” asked Rich Berger, Clif Bar vice-president of engineering, food supply, who presented a case study on designing and building the Clif Bar Baking Company of Twin Falls facility in Twin Falls, Idaho, at BEMA’s recent annual convention.
“When we built our new bakery in Idaho, we challenged every component of the design as well as the whole of the design to align with this vision of thinking like a tree,” Mr. Berger said. “We continue that goal as we build and operate other parts of our supply chain.”
To further illustrate this effort, Mr. Berger and Clif Bar encouraged the baking industry share in this mindset.
“To celebrate trees and recognize the commitment BEMA membership has to the environment, we planted five trees for each attendee, through American Forests’ Global ReLeaf program,” he said.
Mr. Berger asked to have the trees planted in the High Sierra Ranger District Restoration project. The snowpack of the Sierra Nevada Mountains supplies roughly 30% of California’s water to urban areas and the state’s $47 billion agricultural industry. This 600-acre project in particular will plant 128,500 seedlings, a mix of ponderosa pine, Jeffrey pine, sugar pine, white fir and red fir.
“This is just one project of several we have planned for the region during 2017,” Mr. Berger said.
In total, Clif Bar donated 625 trees on BEMA’s behalf.
