About the Giraffe
Laughing Giraffe Organics was founded in May of 2006. Our mission is to provide nutrient dense minimally processed snack foods to you. Too much of our food is made in huge factories by miles and miles of machines. We are reintroducing the human factor back into the food you eat. We believe that the energy that goes into making your food is as important as the ingredients themselves. The intention behind creating your food is important to us. Is your food made with disregard for the people making it? Is there more focus on profit margins than the quality of your food or the well being of the people preparing your food? At Laughing Giraffe Organics these things concern us. We believe that happy, well taken care of employees, who take pride in what they do because they are appreciated make a better more nourishing product.
We are a small family owned and operated company; by supporting our company and buying our products you are not only contributing to our families but the families of our employees. When you think this way it creates the sense of community we have began to loose as a culture. Globalization and exponential options are becoming more prevalent causing the market place is become dehumanized. People are thinking less and less about who makes the products they buy or where they come from and likewise, the people working in the factories could care less about the products they are producing in mass for a low wage. Fortunately people are starting to think about these things and realizing the negative effect the way food and other products are made can have on our communities and our health. Even with growing awareness we are a long way from the tight knit communities of yesterday where people could depend on each other.
Our hope is that by making a high quality, nourishing product people will continue to support our company so we can continue to support our families and our extended family. Our goal is to grow a customer base that depends on us to deliver handcrafted, minimally processed, nutrient dense, nourishing snacks.
We depend on YOU so feel free to contact us with any questions or concerns, you will not get an automated response or have to push twelve buttons to get a customer service representative. You have direct access to the people who are making the products and 99% of the time you will be directly calling or emailing me, Justin “the owner”. I feel it is VERY important for me as an owner to deal with the people supporting my dream. There are plenty of other responsibilities I can delegate taking care of your needs is not one of them.
A short history of the Giraffe
In May of 2006 Laughing Giraffe Organics began selling goods at local farmers markets in Phoenix, Arizona. While at one of the markets some folks from Whole Foods Market approached us to become part of their local producer program. Whole Foods works very hard to reach out to the community and support local producers, they worked with us and helped us get out packaging compliant with retail standards, something we knew little about at the time, and then we were placed in one of the local stores. We were doing well and had two products on the shelf. Our big break came when we were invited by the store to do a demo during the “big corporate walk through”. It was during this walk through we were fortunate enough to meet Walter Robb, Co-President of Whole Foods Markets Inc. Mr. Robb liked our products and saw potential. He put us in touch with the Regional Coordinator so we could be sold in all the stores in the region. There was one problem. We were not able to produce the amount of product needed. Whole Foods allowed us to add one store at a time, as we were able to produce more product we added stores. Mr. Robb told us to take it slow and not to grow too fast. This was a huge break and we did just as he suggested, over the next six months we moved out of our friend’s restaurant and into our own kitchen.
It was around this time that we were approached by Whole Foods to participate in a new program called the Local Producer Loan Program. We were given a loan for 20K to expand our business. Shortly after we were approached by Whole Foods private regional distributor and with the combination of those two events we were being sold in every Whole Foods in AZ, NV, and Southern California. With unbelievable support from Whole Foods and a tireless work ethic we continued to grow.
In September of 07’ a wonderful customer wondered why she could not buy our products in Boulder, Co and took it upon herself to make some phone calls. Due to that ONE person’s belief in our products and our success in our local region we were picked up by Whole Foods Rocky Mountain Region. We just kept doing what we do; keeping our intentions true and things began to grow very rapidly. We realized it might be time to look into larger distribution.
I had made the acquaintance of Michael Funk, President of United Natural Foods, at a benefit dinner and decided to contact him. Mr. Funk told me what it would take to be distributed by UNFI and helped us understand that aspect of the business. After some hard work and a lot of negotiating we were accepted into the UNFI family. We are still working to stabilize things and certainly dealing with some growing pains but we are now distributed by UNFI out of all Western Division distribution centers and are retailed at over eighty locations nationwide.