A L L A S P I R AT I O N S A N N U A L R E P O R T 2 0 1 3
B U S INE SS P EOPLE C OMM U N I T Y BRANDS
P L AN ET
Welcome to our seventh All Aspirations Annual Report. In this issue, we’re excited to share important news about Clif Bar & Company in 2013. After six years of serving as Clif Bar’s co-CEOs, last spring we transitioned to our new positions: Clif Bar co-CVOs, Chief Visionary Officers. What is a Chief Visionary Officer? Someone with a deep and broad understanding of the business, and the vision that’s needed to steward the company successfully into the future, safeguarding its health for the long term. Looking back, we realized that we’ve already been doing this visioning work for quite a while. As CVOs, we’ll continue to work with Clif Bar’s leadership team to develop and refine our Five Aspirations business model — Sustaining Our Business, Our Brands, Our People, Our Community, and the Planet — and contribute to Clif Bar’s growth and direction with fresh perspective. We’ve prepared for this transition with the same rigorous planning and discipline that goes into all our adventures, whether it’s cycling or climbing or running a business. Over the past six years, we’ve been mentoring our leadership “dream team,” and they’ve been managing more and more of the daily operations at Clif Bar. So who was appointed Chief Executive Officer last spring? Most of you already know Kevin Cleary. Kevin has been at Clif Bar for 10 years, serving as president since 2009 and leading with his own impressive blend of strength, humility, and great sense of humor.
B O RN O N A BIKE K I TC H EN C R AFTED
We’re excited about this new opportunity to work with Kevin, the leadership team, and our entire company in a new way. We’re looking forward to the road ahead and our ongoing journey to build a different kind of company: the kind of place we’d want to work, that makes the kind of food we’d like to eat, and that strives for a healthier, more sustainable world — the kind of world we’d like to pass on to our children. As we look forward to 2014, we thank everyone in the larger Clif community for their 2013 efforts. We’re excited to see what’s on the trail ahead.
FA M I LY & E M P LOY EE OW NED Kit and Gary Owners and Chief Visionary Officers, Clif Bar & Company
At Clif Bar & Company, we gauge our success on not one but five bottom lines. We have come to call them our Five Aspirations.
Our Increasing Use of Organic Ingredients I REL A ND
Growing Internationally
– kit
GERMANY
crawford
A Letter From Kevin Cleary, Clif Bar & Company’s New CEO
Building a resilient company, investing for the long term
ESS
BUSIN
I came to Clif 10 years ago, loving the food and fascinated by a company that runs on Five Aspirations. Since then I’ve learned from — and been inspired by — the many passionate people here. I’m excited about business as a platform for positive change. Our Five Aspirations add complexity to our business model, but that pales in comparison to the positive impact we can have: promoting organic agriculture, running our headquarters on solar power, advocating for green energy throughout our supply chain, and inviting like-minded companies to volunteer with us on service projects around the country, to name a few.
Welcome to the newest members of the extended Clif family: Australia, Austria, Germany, Ireland, Japan, New Zealand, and Switzerland. So far, the response to Clif has exceeded our expectations (our Japanese friends are actually translating Gary’s book, Raising the Bar). In the meantime, here are a few notes from our newest mates and 友人:
We strive to make effective business decisions that positively impact our Five Aspirations. What makes this possible? As a privately held, family- and employee-owned company, we have the capacity to invest in our business in ways that advance not only financial payback, but aspirational returns. As a result, we continue to see the benefits of our longterm investments in organic ingredients, dynamic employee benefits, consumer relationships, and community giving, to name a few. After more than 10 years, it’s safe to say that our aspirational business model is a success, and we will continue with this approach to sustain our business for the future.
70
million pounds
60 50 40 30 20 10 0 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
In 2013, we bought 95 million pounds of organic ingredients, bringing our total purchase of organic to date to 425 million pounds.
AU S TRA LI A
WHAT’S COOKING IN IDAHO? SWITERLAND
Ultra Trail Mt. Fuji (UTMF) took place on April 27 and 28
Australia
Japan
“CLIF Bar was launched at the Australian Health and Fitness Expo in April. The response was AMAZING! Our stand had a crowd of people, three-rows deep almost every hour of the weekend. Over 7,500 CLIF Bars and CLIF SHOT samples were consumed.”
“CLIF Bar was launched in Japan in February and within six months, it has achieved broad distribution in various outlets.... It was even stocked by over 40 stores near Mount Fuji during the climbing season, which drew an extra number of visitors due to its recent recognition as a World Heritage Site.”
– Rich Boragno, Chief Financial Officer
Aspirational business model 2
80
J A PAN
I’m also inspired by the chance to create a culture big enough to maximize everyone’s contribution. The reason this place hums is because it takes all kinds of people to make us the best we can be. Many types of instruments play in our band. Each unique instrument makes a distinctive contribution, and we want to be able to hear each one in the improvisational music we’re creating. Gary and Kit call it the jazz of business. My job is to help lead the music, keep the beat, and make sure there’s time to dance along the way. Who am I? I’m a father, a husband, an athlete, and just like every other Clif employee, I’m an owner of Clif Bar & Company.
95
90
N EW Z EALAND
BUSINESS 2013 BY THE NUMBERS
A USTR I A
Organic ingredients (million pounds)
100
S WITZERL A ND
10-year compounded annual growth rate:
In 2013, we announced that we would be building a new bakery in Twin Falls, Idaho. The 300,000 square foot bakery will start construction in 2015 and begin making CLIF and Zbars in 2016. During a celebration at the city’s beautiful Municipal Band Stand, Twin Falls Mayor Greg Lanting proudly proclaimed Clif Bar to be “America’s Coolest Company.” We think Twin Falls is pretty cool, too. In all Five Aspirations — Sustaining Our Business, Brands People, Community, and Planet — Twin Falls really stood out as a place that we’d like to call home.
TWIN FALLS
10-year aggregate organic purchases:
17% 425 7new countries
million pounds
CLIF is now available in
3
NOTES FROM OUR CONSUMERS Creating brands with integrity, quality, and authenticity
“My kids love the Zbar and the Fruit Ropes. I love the CLIF Crunch granola bars. Thank you for making products I can feel good about eating and feeding to my toddlers!” – Alicyn, MI
New Zfruit + Veggie is made with organic sweet potato, organic carrot puree, and organic red beet juice concentrate, and no highfructose corn syrup.
DS
BRAN
“I’ve been a mountain biker since 1985 and a road cyclist since 2003 and I’ve eaten only your CLIF Bars for years because they are super tasty, real creative, and real food. Love that you source non-GMO ingredients and more and more organic. I just tried White Chocolate Macadamia and it is my new favorite. Thanks for real good real food.” – Adam, PA
Have your cake and nutrients, too! LUNA’s new Carrot Cake combines the sweetness of carrots, cinnamon, and raisins with the crunchiness of walnuts, and provides essential vitamins and minerals, too.
NEW IN 2013
“Still not secure enough in my manhood to eat a LUNA bar.” – Seth, CA
In 2013, we introduced four new fruit and seed flavors.
CLIF SHOT Electrolyte Hydration Drink Mix is a performance drink crafted to help athletes stay hydrated during activity. CLIF SHOT Protein Recovery Drink Mix is specifically formulated to help the body restore, replenish, and rebuild after a workout. (And by moving from canister to stand-up pouches, the new SHOT packaging eliminates about 3,500 pounds of plastic from landfills annually.)
Inspired by the classic trail mix combination, CLIF Sierra Trail Mix is made with crunchy peanuts, sweet raisins, rich chocolate, and tasty pumpkin and sunflower seeds to create a balanced sweet and salty bar. “The first of its kind to be made with sustainably grown cocoa from Rainforest Alliance Certified™ farms. It’s a great step forward in the move toward ethical production, one we hope will be embraced industry-wide.” – Men’s Journal
Most people don’t know that in the ’90s, I was a competitive athlete doing mostly triathlons. One day, during a 100-mile ride, I started bonking. Someone handed me a CLIF Bar. It changed my ride — I was able to keep going and finish. Taste and performance are what first drew me to Clif — but I also liked the nutritionals, the ingredients, the packaging, everything that was there. It’s funny looking back now — I found Clif Bar & Company while doing a sport I loved. Now our grassroots sampling program lets us connect with people at athletic events and festivals — places where they’re doing the things they love — and that’s still the cornerstone of what we do. Food is meant to be shared, and it’s fun to be a part of sharing CLIF Bar with more people today.
Selected as the best prerace snack by Triathlete in Best Gear of 2013, and as the “Favorite energy bars that taste good, and good for you” by Gear Junkie.
Give us a chance, Seth! We’re an equal opportunity bar. Real men eat LUNA bars.
– Michelle Ferguson, Executive Vice President of Marketing
Food crafted for perfor mance 4
“I love that there are very few ingredients and that everything is organic. I used to eat Lärabars but have switched to your product because it’s organic. Please keep up the good work.” – Kira, CA
BRANDS 2013 BY THE NUMBERS
Kit’s Organic was named “2013 Best New Gear” energy bar winner by Backpacker Magazine, and Men’s Health said, “They are made with real ingredients you can pronounce, don’t have added sugars or junky fats, and they taste incredible.”
CLIF Bar is
#1 among energy bars*
1,500 CLIF-SPONSORED
athletes competed in 8 core sports
We introduced
20 new flavors in 2013
*According to the Harris Equitrend poll, which measures and compares the brand health of more than 1,500 brands in over 50 categories.
5
DS
BRAN
Meet This Year’s Defining Moment, Shared by David Todd
Through our programs, we reach out to meet people faceto-face at athletic and environmental events, film festivals, and outdoor service projects. We are continually attentive to the spirit and magic that have carried us this far.
The CLIF Bar Pace Team was on course in 2013, helping more than 50,000 runners at 17 full and half marathons. Since its inception 10 years ago, the Pace Team has paced more than 400,000 runners at 150 races. The Pace Team made its Canadian debut at the Hamilton Marathon north of Toronto.
A story of pushing through doubt, pain, and missing vertebrae to reach the top of the world.
PHOTO BY DAVID TODD
LUNAFEST is an annual traveling festival of short films by, for, and about women, which offers female filmmakers a national platform for their work. Started in 2000, LUNAFEST helps raise money for nonprofit organizations in their own communities, as well as for LUNAFEST’s main beneficiary, the Breast Cancer Fund. We wrapped up the 2012/2013 season with 190 events and raised more than $350,000 for women’s nonprofit organizations in the United States and Canada.
Climber David Todd summited Mera Peak in the Himalayas just 17 months after having a walnut-sized tumor removed from his back. Along with the tumor, the surgery removed the rear portion of three vertebrae, and as David lay in his hospital bed, barely able to move, he thought his climbing days were over.
CLIF Kid invited children to turn off their screens, get outside, and invent some new backyard games. Finalists (aged six to eight) were invited to San Diego to unveil their new, original games.
But then, his will won out: “Days later, still unable to get out of bed even to use the bathroom, my mind was made up. I began by sitting, next came standing, and finally one foot in front of the other. With the unyielding support of family and friends I was Himalaya bound.”
Ben from Michigan won a $10,000 scholarship for Card Sharks and The MSFTS team won $15,000, which they donated to their school in Jackson, MS, for some much-needed P.E. equipment. (Rules for all games can be downloaded at www.clifkidbackyardgame.com)
David says that in fact it was his illness that pushed him to climb higher than he ever had before: “Having escaped death, now was the time to live my dream.... At 21,247 feet [Mera Peak] is far from the tallest, and is classified as a trekking peak, meaning it doesn’t require too much technical climbing, but I knew getting there was still going to be a huge challenge.” This photo captures David’s Defining Moment on the mountain he chose for his quest. His Mera Peak summit is a challenge and an inspiration to adventurers everywhere. David decided to award the $10,000 donation for being 2013’s Defining Moment to Access Fund.
Creating brands with
– Ricardo Balazs, Sports Culture Manager, Running
integrity, quality, and authenticity 6
$1.9
million
When you commit to running a marathon, it’s hard. You put in the miles, you put in the training, but when it comes to race day — now what? One of the classic mistakes runners make is that they start out too fast and are exhausted before they’re halfway through. Over the years — and the miles — athletes at Clif gave this a lot of thought. Lots of people want to run a four-hour marathon. What if they ran together as a team? That’s how we started the Clif Pace Team. People helping people achieve goals, not by themselves, but in a community of others with a similar goal.
PROGRAMS 2013 BY THE NUMBERS
meetthemoment.com
raised to date by LUNAFEST for the Breast Cancer Fund and 924 women’s nonprofit organizations
50,000 athletes crossed the finish line in 2013 with support from the CLIF Pace Team
240 kids+23 groups
submitted their original ideas for CLIF Kid Backyard Games 7
Working side by side, encouraging each other; our company is our people
E
PEOPL
In September, we celebrated our 12th annual epiphany ride. We exceeded our goal for internal hiring by filling 34% of open positions from within.
Twenty-eight new Clif babies were born in 2013, including three sets of twins!
Clif employees lined up for the first annual Clif employees’ art exhibit.
More than 100 employees and their families joined us for our annual company ski trip.
Clifsters’ anonymous answers to the Trust Index Survey question, “Is there anything unique or unusual about this company that makes it a great place to work?” made us #9 nationwide in Best Places To Work (medium size).
Dogs still help us to keep our cool.
At my very first meeting with Kit and Gary, they asked, “What benefits aren’t we offering that we should be offering?” “I was afraid you’d ask that,” I said, “and I’m hard-pressed to think of anything. You have a gym, laundry, flexible work schedules, sabbaticals, and dogs welcome in the office.” Since then, we have found things to add: the ESOP retirement benefit, organic café, and onsite child care, for example. The perspective here is different than sustaining our people — it’s “How can we improve and enhance the holistic life experience for our people?” Not “How can we save money?” or “How can we scale back so we don’t have to lay people off?” or “How can we raise health plan deductibles to lower the costs?” That’s never been the driving force. At Clif Bar we get to support the whole person in many different ways.
Tom Richardson won the Clif Table Tennis Tournament.
– Claudia Perkins, Vice President of Human Resources
Supporting the whole person 8
This is not a typical company. Nearly everything Clif Bar does for its employees is taken to the next level: Employee ownership/ESOP, child care, dog friendly, gym with personal trainers, massages, matched 401K, family atmosphere, and the owners know your name. Great place to work.
361 #9
employees {60% female, 26% minorities}
ranked
Great Place to Work® named Clif one of the best workplaces in the United States in Fortune magazine.
Not too many companies welcome you into their doors with introductory meetings with the CEO and tea with the owners, but Clif Bar is that type of company.
PEOPLE 2013 BY THE NUMBERS
Sixty new people joined the company in 2013 and turnover remained low at 3%.
26 SABBATICALS
nationwide in Best Workplaces 2013 among medium-sized companies in Fortune magazine 9
Promoting healthy, sustainable communities, local and global
Dr. Jane Goodall spoke at Clif Bar, sharing her message of hope.
Urban farming in West Oakland: 24 volunteers from 15 companies spent nine days building a timber frame outdoor classroom and custom workshop with City Slicker Farms.
NITY
U COMM
Clif’s HR and Finance teams volunteered at the Edible School Yard next to Berkeley’s Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School.
Sustainable housing in Hopi: 15 volunteers from 10 companies spent nine days replastering three homes and three community ovens using traditional adobe clay with Kii Nat Wan Lawla, our nonprofit partner.
Golf Fundraiser Big Dinner Fundraiser 4,500
Meals on Wheels
nds of dollars)
25 employees raised $30,000 for Jack and Buena Foundation.
289 employees donated over 2,000 hours supporting Sunol Agriculture Park.
When we first started talking about a Community Aspiration, we sensed it could be powerful—more than community service alone— but we didn’t know exactly what it would look like. I thought back to one of my own earliest and most profound experiences of community. In 1975, my parents made the difficult decision to flee Vietnam with their six children. The people of Loose Creek, Missouri, a town of just a few thousand people, sponsored our family and provided the solid foundation that we needed to rebuild our lives. Growing up in that supportive town, I learned that trust, patience, and respect are the building blocks of all worthwhile community work. Over the past 10 years, I’ve watched Clif Bar’s Community Aspiration come to life through thousands of similar efforts. We volunteer, donate products, give money, and commit to being active members of our communities, both local and global.
10
Youth empowerment through art in the South Bronx: 20 volunteers from 11 companies spent nine days renovating an art studio, transforming a shipping container into an art gallery, and building a multipurpose space with The Point CDC.
– Thao Pham, Vice President of Community
Trust, patience, respect
4,000 3,500 3,000
DONATIONS GROW IN 2013
2,500 2,000 1,500
■ Product ■ Cash
1,000 500 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
COMMUNITY 2013 BY THE NUMBERS
Community Service Day
Donated value (thousa
Clif Bar has collaborated with MoW for more than 10 years. In 2013, Clif people delivered 500 hot meals to Berkeley residents.
98 , 60 000 volunteer hours
participation in more than %Project 2080 volunteer program in 2013
since we started Project 2080
33
$
million
88 golfers and 40 Clif employees raised $75,000 for North Bay Developmental Disabilities Services, and the Regional Center of the East Bay.
in cash and products
DONATED over the past 10 years 11
Conserving and restoring our natural resources; growing a business that works in harmony with the laws of nature
In the first year of Clif’s National Parks Benefits Program, 78 employees were reimbursed for annual passes to National Parks.
PLAN
ET
Clif celebrated Earth Day with a weeklong Eco Paper Challenge, which reduced paper use at headquarters by 40%.
At Clif, we invest in school- and communityowned wind turbines to offset our carbon footprint. A school that generates its own wind power has more money for education and more opportunities for hands-on science. In 2013, five of these wind turbines became operational in Indiana.
From a Clif Bar podium, Barbara Boxer promoted bipartisan national legislation that would require clear labeling of genetically engineered foods.
In 2013, our use of organic oats and soy meant that approximately 20,000 acres of land were farmed without the use of toxic pesticides and chemical fertilizers. More good news: an estimated 14,000 tons of CO2 were sequestered in those organically farmed soils. Clif Bar also buys renewable energy credits (RECs) from Indiana’s Tippecanoe school wind turbine.
26,000 24,000 22,000 20,000
Compost Is Cool: As part of our ongoing Zero Waste efforts at headquarters, we challenged employees to decrease waste-to-landfill and increase waste-to-compost.
C OCO A
Total CO2 Emissions & Carbon Offsets
18,000 16,000 14,000 12,000
Kit Crawford and Elysa Hammond celebrate the multiple benefits of organic at NPE West.
The daily mean concentration of CO2 in earth’s atmosphere surpassed 400 parts per million for the first time in recorded history.
We began talking about reducing our ecological footprint back in 2001, and people started asking, What would sustainability look like at Clif Bar? How do we know when we get there? We proposed this vision: Our products would be made with sustainable, organic ingredients; baked with clean, renewable energy; packaged in environmentally friendly packaging; and shipped in a way that doesn’t pollute. Fast-forward a dozen years and we’ve found a simpler way to talk about it: Let’s create a supply chain that thinks like a tree. Trees run on 100% renewable energy, recycle all waste, and sustain and improve the places they grow. Think like a tree is more than a metaphor — it’s a model for thinking sustainably. Nature has a lot to teach us.
12
Think like a tree
8,000 6,000 4,000
Eric Russell and son, Beau, cycle to school.
2,000 0
To date, 145 employees have purchased bikes or bike trailers, and 134 employees have purchased fuel-efficient hybrid, electric, or biodiesel cars through Clif’s Cool Commute program. (Cool Commute rewards people for cycling or walking to work, and provides $6,500 toward green cars.)
– Elysa Hammond, Director of Environmental Stewardship
2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013
■ CO2 emissions
■ CO2 emissions generated generated by ground by bakeries, office, and freight transport business travel
■ Carbon offsets
To keep our carbon footprint climate neutral, we’ve been measuring and offsetting the CO2 emissions generated by energy use in our office, bakeries, and business travel since 2003. In 2007 we also offset our historical climate footprint (dating back to 1992), and the following year we began to offset the impact of in-bound shipping.
73% 85% we achieved
of all ingredients
purchased were
certified
organic
waste diversion at headquarters
THROUGH 3 REDUCE, REUSE & RECYCLING
we celebrated
12
years
CLIF Sierra Trail Mix, the first CLIF bar to contain Rainforest Alliance Certified™ cocoa, hit the shelves. By mid-2013, all cocoa in CLIF Bars was sourced from Rainforest Alliance Certified farms.
PLANET 2013 BY THE NUMBERS
Our solar array generated, on average, 80% of our headquarters’ electricity in 2013 (even though our office doubled in size at the same time).
Tons CO2
10,000
of climate neutral business operations 13
Clif Bar Family Foundation supports innovative small and midsized groups working to strengthen our food system and our communities, enhance public health, and safeguard our environment and natural resources. In 2013, the foundation awarded more than $3.7 million to more than 380 pioneering organizations.
Money won’t do much good if people and purpose get left behind. White Road Investments is an alternative investment firm that funds mission-driven, healthy lifestyle companies. Currently we have investments in 12 companies—including Wild Planet Foods, Guayaki Yerba Mate, Public Bikes, Herb Pharm, The Honest Kitchen—and we continue to search for new partners.
Clif Bar Family Foundation’s Seed Matters provides CPR for seeds: Conserve crop genetic diversity Promote farmers’ roles and rights as seed stewards Reinvigorate public seed research and education In 2013, we awarded four new fellowships for organic plant breeding: Claire Luby (carrots and beets), Ryan Gregory (cotton), Zachary Jones (corn), and Louisa Winkler (oats and wheat). We now support eight fellows in New York, Wisconsin, North Carolina, Texas, Oregon, and Washington.
At Clif Family Winery, our goal is to craft unique regional wines and food using practices that care for the earth and conserve biodiversity. In 2013, we introduced our first estate grown Cabernet Sauvignon made with grapes from our certified organic Cold Springs Vineyard.
Gary Erickson & Kit Crawford, Owners and Chief Visionary Officers | Kevin Cleary, Chief Executive Officer Thao Pham & Elysa Hammond, Co-editors | Mija Riedel, Managing Editor | John Marin, Senior Creative Director John Taylor, Design Director | Bill Ribar/Formative, Designer | Sandy Biagi, Print Management Karen Drinkwater, Anne Hamersky, Photographers | Chris McNally, Illustrator Special thanks to our contributors: Gregg Bagni, Ricardo Balazs, Shirin Belur, Val Bisharat, Rich Boragno, Caron Bush, Chris Chufo, Kevin Cleary, Deven Clemens, Doug Cornille, Tina Crawford, Kate Cuniff, Cassie Cyphers, Matthew Dillon, Michelle Ferguson, Jen Freitas, Linzi Gay, Steve Grossman, Jeff Hantman, Sue Hearn, Dan Hickle, Chandler Kneer, Priscilla Martin, Dean Mayer, Jodi Olson, Melissa Paulo, Claudia Perkins, Monica Pomeranz, Meaghan Praznik, Chris Randall, Eric Russell, Jennifer Snyder, Cait Spillner, George Thoma, Cassandra Todd, Carrie Walle, Eric Walle, Emily Zisman.
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