First, we want to take a moment to recognize the horrific death of George Floyd last Monday, and all that has unfolded over the last few days in response.  This, in addition to the ongoing pandemic, has created an historic and heartbreaking situation illuminating the struggles that many of our team members, friends, families and partners face every single day simply because of the color of their skin and deeply-rooted inequalities across America.  We are overwhelmed with sadness, profoundly frustrated and left searching for how we can do more.

For almost 100 years, people have been at the center of everything we do. Being a manufacturing company, we hire and develop people from all walks of life – people of different socio-economic background, color, age, national origin, education and life experience.  We believe in creating stepping-stones of opportunity to all of our team members.  And as an Opportunity Company, we believe that businesses can – and should – create more opportunities for people.  More opportunities for team members, partners, and communities.

As Torani has steadily grown, our successes have enabled us to widen the circle of success for more to thrive. We strongly believe in diversity and inclusion, and that having many different people and voices at the table fuels our success and enables us to set our path of being a force for good in the world. 

And yet we are aware there is SO much more we can do!

Today we double down on diversity and inclusion efforts, committing to: 

• Collaborate with the B-Corp community to continue to develop best people practices at work, that build onramps to inclusion and opportunity.
• Reprioritize our giving programs (e.g., Torani Café Opportunity Funds, product donations, etc.) immediately to help in those areas most negatively impacted by the recent events.
• Reach out to our local government in our new home of San Leandro and neighboring communities to explore ways we can support job training, educational programs and other programs that support improving access to opportunity.

We know this is just a start.

In challenging times like these, it is more important than ever for all of us--- as individuals and as businesses of all sizes --- to do the work to make a difference.  If each of us can do a little more to help create access and opportunity for all, then together our impact will be meaningful, bold and lasting.

With love and care,

Melanie and the Torani Team