Its products — like Horizon Organic and Silk Soy milk — were the first national organic brands.
Its challenge was whether it could unite the spirit and principles of a healthy, good food company with the scale and resources needed to make a bigger difference.
Acting on purpose and possibility means pursuing bold vision.
Mapping possible vision trajectories spurred the most important debate in WhiteWave’s history — helping them see and choose the possibility of becoming Earth's favorite food company.
The choice changed everything.
More than 1,500 employees set objectives and key results that aligned every aspect of the organization to its vision and values.
The company — its people — understood that their meaningful attentiveness to what the world wanted resulted in enduring innovations. Those innovations grew through disciplined systems that worked at scale to reshape or even build new categories.
The WhiteWave culture — which had once been threatened by the tension between small and good versus big and bad — was now unified around changing the way the world eats for the better.
The willingness of leaders to learn how to lead a purpose-driven company created results that made WhiteWave the company competitors wanted to be.
Its Gallup employee engagement scores moved into the top 5% of all companies.
For 16 consecutive quarters, it was the fastest-growing CPG company in America. Its performance set the stage for a successful IPO, where sales increased at a 19% compound annual growth rate before being bought by Danone for $12.5 billion.
“We knew early on that Unboundary was the right partner to work with us on such a monumental endeavor. They got to know us, warts and all, and created a compelling story, mission and values that energized our people and gave them a greater sense of pride in who we are, where we've been and where we're headed.”Joe Scalzo
Former President and CEO, WhiteWave Foods
