A look back at ... Stonyfield Farm.

Since France-based Danone purchased a majority stake in Stonyfield Farm in 2003, the organic yogurt maker has maintained its small business image and environmental focus, continuing to educate the public and support a variety of social programs, due in part to Gary Hirshberg, chairman, president and CE-YO, who retains majority board control and continues to manage the company independently.

Since it began donating 10% of profits to environmental causes in 1993, Stonyfield Farm has contributed almost $3 million to various groups and projects. It replaced its small cup plastic lid and inner seal with a new foil seal in 2003, reducing solid waste by a net of 106 tons in just the first year.

The company also installed a 50-kilowatt (kW) solar energy system atop its 120,000 square-foot manufacturing facility in 2005, supplying about as much electricity as 10 homes might use on an annual basis. Partnering with NativeEnergy, Stonyfield also purchased Renewable Energy Certificates, or "Green Tags" that provide up-front financing for new wind energy projects.

Other strategic partnerships in recent years have included efforts to install nutritious vending machines at schools around the country and expansion plans for a healthy "fast food" restaurant chain called O'Naturals that offers natural beef and free range chicken sandwiches, along with vegetarian options and fresh, local salad ingredients. Through its organic ingredient purchases, Stonyfield helps to keep over 60,000 farm acres free of toxic, persistent pesticides and chemical fertilizers known to contaminate soil, rivers and drinking water.

As it closed in on its 25th anniversary, Stonyfield converted the remainder of its dairy product line to organic last year. It also changed its 2-a-Day product name to YoCalcium, which contains the prebiotic fiber inulin, vitamin D and 50% of the recommended Daily Value of calcium.

Stonyfield has rolled out several new products in recent years including YoMommy--fortified with folic acid, vitamin D and DHA--to meet the nutritional needs of pregnant, nursing and new moms, along with their growing babies. YoBaby Simply Plain contains organic whole milk that provides calcium and protein along with Stonyfield's six live active probiotic cultures to ensure good intestinal health: L. bulgaricus, S. thermophilus, L. acidophilus, Bifidus, L. casei, and L. rhamnosus. The company's organic smoothies have also gained in popularity, as they contain the six active cultures and are available in Strawberry, Raspberry, Peach, Banana Berry, Wild Berry and Vanilla.

Stonyfield also offers organic ice cream and frozen yogurt; O'Soy soy yogurt, which is a "good source of calcium and protein"; YoBaby Plus Fruit & Cereal with DHA; and Oikos Organic Greek Yogurt in partnership with Euphrates, makers of authentic old-world foods--it is the only nationally distributed organic Greek yogurt on the market today.

Started as an organic farming school, Stonyfield gets an "A" for its efforts over the past quarter century.

(Stonyfield Farm was profiled as an "Industry Innovator"--Company to Watch--in the April 2000 edition. Its CE-YO Gary Hirshberg was also profiled as an "Indsutry Innovator" in the June 2001 edition.) NW

-- Sean Moloughney, Associate Editor