I'm Oscar Mendoza, I do marketing for Follow Your Heart.
This is VegEMOJI over here, our mascot.
We're at Earth Island in Chatsworth, California.
Just a short trip outside of LA.
This facility is 100% plant-based, we don't run any animal products through any of our machinery.
We are 100% solar powered.
We have some solar panels up on the roof that power our entire building,
and we actually produce so much solar power
that we're able to sell some back to the grid.
This year, in 2017, marks the 40th anniversary of Vegenaise being created.
Vegenaise was the world's first 100% plant-based mayo alternative.
It started off in Bob Goldberg, our CEO's kitchen,
and now you can find them in pretty much any supermarket throughout
the U.S., Canada, Europe, Mexico, Australia, and New Zealand.
There's a whole kind of subculture around it, too.
There's fan-made music videos, tons of fan art.
Call it Veg-enaise, call it Vegan-aise, call it Ve-genaise, call it anything you want.
Just as long as it's got that little Follow Your Heart logo on it, it's us and we don't really care what you call it.
Hi, my name is Bob Goldberg.
I am the CEO of Earth Island, Follow Your Heart.
I'm talking to you from our factory in Chatsworth, California, where we make Vegenaise
and other Follow Your Heart branded products.
I'm also the original creator of Vegenaise.
Vegenaise was pretty much developed in my kitchen at home.
I talked to people who were in the business of making mayonnaise
about how we could make mayonnaise without eggs.
They all told me that it can't be done.
To this day, two of the original owners still own 100% of the company, so that there's no outside influence.
Follow Your Heart, where all of this stuff originated, started first as a vegetarian food bar,
then we moved to a place that was a local butcher shop.
It was really ironic that a vegetarian company would take over a butcher shop.
Everybody predicted doom for us because it just was not believed that you could have a grocery store without meat.
Our position was pretty much, "Well, we're gonna find out,"
and what we found out was that people actually liked it. Well, some people actually liked it better.
In the 80's, we started a separate company called Earth Island, where we are today.
From here, we make the Vegenaise, salad dressings, our cheese alternatives, our VeganEgg.
Almost all of that is done right here, in this facility.
You know, how we get our power is just a part of it.
The food production business can be a very messy business and produce a lot of waste.
Several years ago, the company set a goal to become a zero waste certified company,
and, in fact, we did just recently receive that certification as gold certified zero waste.
And I think we are the first food company to receive that designation in Southern California.
We currently divert 97% from landfills.
It takes a lot to break habits and not just throw stuff out.
We assumed that it was gonna cost us money.
It turns out, that's not the case. We're actually saving a lot of money.
VeganEgg had been something that Bob Goldberg had been dreaming of for the past 10-15 years.
Vegan egg replacer that not only replaced eggs in baking but also in scrambles and quiches and omelets.
We can produce 100 equivalent VeganEggs with the same water that it takes to produce a single chicken egg.
At this point in my life, I continue to see what is involved in animal agriculture as being
a very serious problem for the planet. The four original founders, we kind of came out of
the hippie movement, I guess you'd say. This was all a part of our belief system -
was that food should be sustainable: There was compassion for animals,
the methods of production were environmentally sound and sustainable,
and that the foods were healthy for humans, was always a part of the overall vision for the company and the products.
We all believed that we would change the world. In many ways, that has come to pass and will continue.
Very grateful for the part that we've gotten to play in it.