PRESIDENT’S CORNER
6
Almond Facts
JULY | AUGUST 2016
President’s Corner
Mark Jansen
President and CEO
You may have noticed that not every
Blue Diamond
logo is the same. We use one for our retail products,
featuring an orange ribbon that says “Almonds.” This one is the most recognizable to our consumers and
our customers. As our teammembers (a preferred term for our
Blue Diamond
employees) know, we use
the logo with the green ribbon that says “Growers” as the name of our company. But there’s a particular
version of the “Growers” logo that we reserve for communicating with our grower-owners and that logo
is what we call the “Power in Partnership” logo. You will find it here and on the cover of this magazine.
This logo is the most important of the collection because it speaks to the nature of our cooperative – the
symbiotic relationship between our grower-owners and teammembers that is required to grow, process
and market the world’s best almonds and almond products.
Grower-owned cooperatives are unique in today’s world of
start-ups and corporations. Some companies are family-
owned, controlled by a tight inner circle of leaders, while
others are publicly traded, opening their doors to the ups
and downs of the market. Grower-owned cooperatives
like
Blue Diamond Growers
offer the best of both worlds. We
are not publicly traded and our owners are family farmers
with an average farm size of 75 acres. The economics of
our almond marketing and processing cooperative sustains
the family farming lifestyle that is iconic in California
agriculture. Our growers uniquely own the manufacturing,
marketing and selling operations of the almonds they
grow, in addition to making the on-farm business decisions
necessary to produce their crop.
Our core values of Integrity, Partnership, Quality and
Innovation are indicative of our farming heritage. Growers
know they are not only given the best possible price for their
almonds, but they are treated fairly by a co-op that reflects
their values and stays true to its mission to maximize the
returns of each grower who delivers their almonds to
Blue Diamond
. These values are also demonstrated by
Blue
Diamond
team members who report that
Blue Diamond
is a
great place to work, in part because our almond growers
entrust us with their livelihood – when we succeed, they
succeed and vice versa. Our team members are proud of
the role they play in keeping California’s family farming
operations prosperous.
More and more, research tells us that consumers want to
know where their food comes from. Well it’s no secret that
the best almonds and almond products come from
Blue
Diamond
and our almonds come directly from more than
half of the almond growers in California. Growers and team
members alike have made a commitment to achieve our
cooperative’s vision – to deliver the benefits of almonds to
the world. Through the awesome power in the partnership
between these two pillars of our great organization, I know
we will succeed.
“People working together in a strong community with
a shared goal and a common purpose can make the
impossible possible.”
– Tom Vilsack, US Secretary of Agriculture
