Barbara’s Bakery does Good Works, and makes Good Eats
by TreeHugger on 05. 6.05
Puffin Cereal is a great tasting, low cost, and socially conscious food. I found the Puffin brand cereal at my local health-nut food store. I wasn’t expecting much, as half the stuff I buy there tastes like cardboard. But the cereal came in a huge box, and cost less then $3. So, I was ecstatic the next morning (which is a difficult thing for me to be in the morning), with this great tasting and inexpensive meal. I was even further delighted when I later sampled all the different varieties of Puffin Cereal. The Peanut Butter is my personal favorite, but the original has also received high marks. Can you imagine the magnitude of my joy when I looked into Barbara’s Bakery and found that they use recycled materials in packaging, and support such organizations as: National Wildlife Refuge Association, Second Harvest, and the Audubon Society/Puffin Project. But their good works don’t end there.
Their socially conscious philosophy knows no bounds and extends from their local project –The Teaching Garden- to their tsunami relief organization and food donation. I also love their unusual policy where, “For every hour an employee donates to a non-profit organization, Barbara's contributes $10 to that organization.” For that matter isn’t Treehugger a non-profit? I wonder if I can get a job at Barbara’s Bakery. At any rate...they also sell a large variety of other food products, which I have not yet tried, but be sure I’m making my way down the list, and will report back. Check them out yourselves, and you may be as pleasantly surprised as I was. ::Barbara’s Bakery ::NWRA ::Audubon Society/Puffin Project [by T. McGee]
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Not to rain on the parade, but Harper's had a good article a few months back looking at the amount of energy/oil necessary to make certain foods. Unfortunately, cereal was one of the foods that required a large amount of energy to produce.
Interesting, I would like to learn more about that study. The point of view of that study I suppose is that more energy = more negative environmental impact. There is some correlation there, but not necessarily all the facts. We don't know how the energy used is produced, or what the net effects of that product are in society. Barbara's Bakery has a rather large environmental and social impact on local communities, and the world for a bakery. I found their efforts to create a positive 'give back' mentality refreshing and a trend I wish more corporations would aspire to.
I agree that it's definitely just an element in a more complicated story and we probably don't even have the information we would need to evaluate the bigger picture.
Here's a link to the article I mentioned: http://www.harpers.org/TheOilWeEat.html