7 grains and 1 mom on a mission: Mom Central visits Kashi day two

Today’s guest post is from Mom Central team member, Anne-Marie Nichols, who edits Mom Central Food and runs Mom Central Blogger University.

On the second day of the Kashi Mom Blogger event, we went for a hike in Torrey Pines State Reserve with people from Kashi and FormulaPR. After we climbed a big hill with me bringing up the rear (I’m a slow hiker, what can I say?) we walked along the beach, and watched the military jets fly overhead on their way out to sea.

After we stretched, we were driven to Great News, a fabulous cookware store and cooking school with a very professional set up including cameras over the stoves. If you live in the area, you must visit their store or take a class.

More Kashi people joined us and we broke up into teams to cook two dishes each. We made a large, delicious lunch using Kashi products and shopped while it was cooking. The most popular kitchen gadget was the onion goggles, special goggles you wear that stop you crying when you cut up onions. I bought a pair of Corvette red ones and they really do work.

Lunch was delicious and cooking it was fun. It also gave us mom bloggers time to socialize with the folks from Kashi while we were cooking delicious dishes. One of my favorites was this recipe, even though it didn’t feature a Kashi product:

Corn, Tomato and Basil Salad
Serves 6

If corn isn’t in season, use canned corn instead.

Ingredients:

• 2 Tablespoons of grapeseed oil
• 6 large ears of white corn, husks and silk removed, kernels cut off the cob
• 1 Tablespoon of minced garlic
• juice of 3 to 4 limes
• 1/4 cup of extra-virgin olive oil
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1/2 cup chiffonade fresh basil
• 1 pint tear drop or grape tomatoes, washed, drained and sliced in half.

Directions:

1. In a large saute pan, over medium heat, heat the oil and saute the corn. Stir occasionally until the corn just begins to brown.
2. Add the garlic and continue to saute for 1 minute more.
3. Transfer to a sheet tray and cool.
4. In a large bowl combine lime juice, olive oil, salt and pepper.
5. Add the corn mixture, basil and tomatoes.
6. Combine and adjust the seasonings if necessary.
7. Chill covered for 3 to 8 hours.
8. Serve.

Back to Kashi HQ

After lunch, we went back to Kashi HQ to learn about their efforts to establish them as the natural healthy lifestyle leader with small scale educational events.

Their Journey to Wellness events happen on the local and national level. The Wellness Hub are free events done monthly in the San Diego area. Examples are natural foods cooking class, yoga on the beach, nature hikes, in store tours, and so on – kind of like the mom blogger event I was on. They feel it’s a great way for Kashi to meet real people and get feedback. It also gets the San Diego community to realize that Kashi is a local company. While a big success, they are looking for ways to make their Wellness Hub events more family friendly.

Their Kashi Day of Change Tour is the national version of Wellness Hub. Kashi’s public goal is to inspire healthy change through nutritional education, sampling, natural food cooking demos and yoga. They hope it gets people to take little steps toward a healthy lifestyle.

In 2009, the Day of Change Tour traveled from the West Coast to the East Coast through 16 cities and 40 events. Kashi usually holds these at existing festivals where they’d be a good fit like triathlons or harvest festivals.

Finally, in August through October, Kashi also holds 2500 retail events with product sampling and natural foods education.They measure success through coupon redemption, how many people sign up afterwards at kashi.com, and looking at increased sales.

Other initiatives

It’s not all about food at Kashi.

Giving back: As part of their mission, they are looking at other ways to contribute to their community and be better citizens of the earth. Kashi has partnered with Terracycle to reuse Kashi wrappers both by consumers, by Kashi packaging manufacturers, and by the Kashi headquarters. 20 tons of Kashi waste has been reused so far.

Interactive community: Kashi started Kashi.com as the “MySpace of natural living.” Their objectives are to build community and deepen the relationship between visitors and Kashi. They do this by offering practical support  like product info, challenges, articles, recipes, videos, and RSS feeds. They also offer emotional support to form meaningful connections by letting consumers interact and comment on the site, as well as the use of a Facebook page, biweekly polls, and letting members list personal accomplishments at Kashi.com.

Finally, they offer motivational support through rewards and recognition like coupons, enewsletter, Kashi Connect invite for the more active members, and their Taste Tester Panel. If you join Kashi.com and becoming active with Kashi Connect, you are able to receive special offers and coupons, exclusive info on Kashi products to share with friends, and opportunities for sampling and giving feedback, too. So far, there are 180,000 members at Kashi.com and 1/3 of them get sample mailings.

Partnering: Every year, Kashi holds Kashi Tarzana, a think tank event where they invite other leaders from the natural food world, academia, agriculture, manufacturers, scientists and growers to a retreat in Sundance, Utah. Everyone volunteers to go and Kashi hires a company to facilitate and moderate.

In 2008, the output from Kashi Tarzana was the Defining Natural Initiative, Kashitopia (natural living training website and curriculum), and Project Bridge (Kashi connecting ideas to people to encourage research to benefit all of the natural community). In 2009, the output was Supporting the Key Elements of Natural Food within our Modern System, which was a call to action for individuals and companies to support the key elements in natural living in today’s world.

Education: Kashitopia, which came out of the 2008 Kashi Tarzana event, is still in progress. It is in the form of a central online location for information on the natural lifestyle that is supported by good scientific proof and research. Kashitopia is curriculum based with tests. Five modules on are nutrition and natural living, with two more modules on sustainable living are being developed. It takes about one hour to work your way through each module.

Currently it’s only accessible if you are a Kashi or a Bear Naked employee, work for Kellogg’s, or part of their PR team. It’s being used to increase employee and marketing partner knowledge.

Phase 2 will be for retailers and their staffs and health professionals (May 2010). Kashi will offer the curriculum for free and for continuing education credits. Finally, Phase 3 will be for the general public and tied into Kashi.com. The plan is to launch it in May 2011.

Farewell to Kashi and La Jolla

We went back to the hotel to rest and then get ready for dinner with Kashi and FormulaPR. Lisa and I brought our families, and my kids were so tired they passed out at the table. (That’s my son Nathan on the right with his ever present bottle of hot sauce. He even uses it on pancakes!)

While the event passed quickly, I learned so much about Kashi and their products. The more I learned, the more I felt confident that they care about their products, their customers and their community. As moms, we can feel good about serving their food to our families.

I’ve been a dedicated Kashi fan since my dad first started eating their cereal back in the early ‘80s. Now that my kids and I have been lovingly immersed in “Kashiness,” I know my relationship is now a family tradition.

Thanks Kashi!

For more about the Kashi Mom Blogger event, see 7 grains and 1 mom on a mission: Mom Central visits Kashi (Day One)