Whole Foods - Coffee & Tea Bar - Austin, Tx

Whole Foods - Coffee & Tea Bar - Austin, Tx

Who does't LOVE Whole Foods Market & Coffee? That's why we were more than thrilled when Vetrazzo was specified for the Coffee & Tea Bar in Whole Foods Market World Headquarters in Austin, Tx. Vetrazzo a 100% post consumer recycled glass counter top material was the perfect material for the project; not only because of the ascetics of the material but Whole Food's Green Mission of the 3 R's: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle is parallel to Vetrazzo's. "Everyone around here strives to honor this (3 R's) golden rule of environmental stewardship". So it was only a natural choice to use Vetrazzo. 

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle .... WELL .... Vetrazzo begins with you! When you RECYCLE dispose of your glass bottles into your curbside recycling bin, it ends up at a facility where it is processed by color and glass type. Once sorted, it's crushed and packaged for companies like Vetrazzo to purchase for REUSE. We source all our glass from post-industrial glass sources and demolition sites to get an array of options for making slabs but ultimately REDUCING all that glass into landfills. Vetrazzo is also made in Tate, Ga reducing any carbon foot print the product may have. 

 

A beautiful dark Charisma Blue with Patina was chosen for the entire Whole Foods Market Coffee & Tea Bar area. As you can see (in the photo to the right), the slab is mostly made of brown beer bottles, a few green wine bottles and there is a hint of a rich blue color which is from Sky Vodka Bottles. To give the counter top a rich dark background a was a patina stain applied to the entire slab at the factory. 

Vetarzzo counter tops are made up of over 85 percent glass, mixed with cement, water, and other proprietary ingredients which makes it a very durable work surface especially in high traffic areas.

The next time you are in the Austin, Tx Whole Foods make sure to grab a cup of Coffee and take a look!
 
For more information about Vetrazzo please visit our webistie!
www.vetrazzo.com

The Vetrazzo Victory Garden

This blog entry comes from Vetrazzo's Vice President of Marketing and resident gardener extraordinaire, Karen Righthand. She proves that if she can grow produce here, she can grow it anywhere:

One bright morning earlier this spring, I strolled out of the Vetrazzo plant after a production staff meeting and the sun hit me square in the eyes. As I squinted looking out the door of the plant at the parking lot, I imagined corn growing in between the parked cars. I don’t know how it came to me but contained in that very moment was the seed of inspiration for our current garden.

You see, I’m a gardener. I love to grow my own delicious fresh food, eat it and feed it to others. It’s so satisfying. And one thing is true of every gardener. No matter how great their garden is, or how much they grow, they always want more. For me, I live in a hilly, tree-laden landscape so finding open, flat, full-sun plots of land where corn could grow is rare. Why not turn a useless parking lot median into a food-producing oasis, I thought.

How fitting is it to have a Victory Garden at Ford Point? As many of you may know, during World War II the Ford Plant was converted to Tank and Jeep assembly. This is the birthplace of “Rosie the Riveter”. “Rosie” and the Victory Gardens so many Americans planted, were symbols of everyday Americans’ patriotism and support for the troops. All across the country, everyday people managed to grow 40% of the fruits and vegetables consumed on the homefront in Victory Gardens.

I ran my idea up the flagpole all the way to the developer of the Ford Point building and he approved it. As a matter of fact, they started putting in irrigation and landscaping around the entire back of the building shortly after I made my request. I met with the foreman and told them what area I’d like to plant and inquired how the irrigation would be done. Turns out they weren’t planning on irrigating the parking median, but only the plots closest to the building. The median was slated for rock mulch…

I met with the production staff to share the garden idea, and asked if anyone had anything in particular they wanted to grow. Alberto asked if we could grow lemons! Why not? So we decided to plant citrus trees in the median. We’d have to water by hand until the trees were established, but at least they would bear fruit, be evergreen and once established they’d be pretty carefree. They were planted mid-June and luckily they are still alive. I must admit, I didn’t count on the stiff breeze blowing off the bay on our little babies all day long. That’s gardening, you learn as you go.

After we decided to go for the garden, several things happened. Juli started some seeds at home in containers saved from our takeout lunches. I brought in some seeds and a growing tray one Friday and many fingers poked seeds into the soil. Even our CEO James’ mom sent some of her favorite seeds to cheer on our project.

Every big idea has its dark side and there were two things I didn’t really factor in. One, how much time it would take to till up the cement-hard clay of this former superfund site and two, I already had my own pretty demanding garden at home tugging at me. Oh and of course, we have a business to run. But the plan had already been set in motion; there was no backing out now.

We broke ground first in the median for the trees then later that week we mixed some compost into the area around each irrigation hose and planted our seed starts. We have a collection of squash, tomatoes and peppers. Also some beans and corn. Under our sign we planted dwarf sunflowers and the Cosmos that James’ mom sent. I was pretty shocked to see the bean, corn and sunflower seeds we direct seeded actually germinate. It’s always exciting when seeds sprout. It’s extra exciting when you weren’t sure the soil you were planting them in could sustain life.

I don’t think we’ll have much more than a token harvest this year, but each season we work the soil, it will get richer. This is where compost comes in! I compost at my own home. I bring the compost bucket from the office home and dump it in my backyard bin. The plan is to bring some of this rich amendment back to use in our Vetrazzo Victory Garden.

The plant staff have been terrific stewards, making sure the garden stays watered. I hope they enjoy watching it grow and I hope there will be some food for them to harvest and enjoy. It will really be a sweet day when we pick our first lemon. I think I’ll have to give it to Alberto.

Vetrazzo's 4-Legged Waste Diversion Program

So, now that you know that the purpose of the blog is to shed some light on the Vetrazzo culture, let me introduce you to Vetrazzo’s newest and most behind-the-scenes star… Mama Goat.

Yes, our one-and-only quadruped star is a goat. But not just any goat. You may even call her The G.O.A.T (Greatest Of All Time). Her name is Mama Goat, but her bucket here at the office is labeled “Goatie”. She belongs to our office assistant, Sharon, who rescued her from abandonment 5 years ago. Goatie is a short, yet important, part of our office waste diversion program.

The first leg of the Vetrazzo office waste diversion project is your typical office recycling program. Every Wednesday and Friday we weigh our paper, plastic, aluminum, etc. and log it so that we can set a benchmark for next year to reduce not only our garbage, but the amount of recyclable waste that leaves the office.

I am the second leg of this program and the first line of defense when it comes to unconsumed grub… I’ve been to Thailand…I eat anything and everything…

I hate wasting food and therefore I consume everybody’s leftovers, within reason, before they can make it to Goatie’s bucket. If it wasn’t for me Goatie would be the fattest goat in the ‘burbs and may not like having her picture taken…like this goat…

Goatie is the third leg, getting second dibs on the food before it hits the compost bucket. Sharon takes Mama Goat’s bucket home every Wednesday and Friday, filled with whatever food munchies I didn’t want (like stems and peels) and mixes it with Purina Goat Chow. We’ve heard this brings a big goat smile to Mama’s face. I have no idea what that looks like so I found this picture of a smiling goat for you to reference…

The fourth leg is composting. Our VP of Marketing keeps a tub in the kitchen for un-goat/Murph-worthy scraps such as coffee grounds, tea bags, cheese, etc. Karen takes that tub home every two days and deposits it in her compost pile. Riding home with a bucket of food waste takes dedication, and if you think it doesn’t, take a look at the food waste left in your company kitchen garbage after a lunch… stanky!

I already mentioned that the goal here is to cut down the amount of waste exiting this office down to the bare minimum, but to some degree we are up-cycling as well. The bottles we recycle make it into a Vetrazzo countertop. The food I eat keeps me in a good mood to write these blogs. The food Karen composts will eventually make its way as soil to our Victory Garden at Ford Point. And last, but not least the food Goatie gets gives her the jump start she needs for her typical goat weekend activities of baying, walking the dog and goat boxing Sharon’s son…

Mama Goat is undefeated, as Shawn never actually throws a punch. Next time Karen will introduce you to the fruits of our waste diversion labor, The Vetrazzo Victory Garden…

Vetrazzo Company Culture

As I sit here looking at a couple of empty 32oz Tecate bottles I brought back from a trip to Mexico last year to split with our CFO (who likes the Tecate Light, but graciously accepted the original) I think about the company culture that makes Vetrazzo what it is. See, I go down to Tecate, Mexico once a year with an NGO called Club Dust to build houses in a shanty town called El Nino. I was only 3 months into my job here at Vetrazzo when the management team happily gave me paid time off to go on this trip. I have just now returned from a very successful trip this year.

Many large corporations will have some sort of paid philanthropy policy…what makes Vetrazzo different is that we have 2 people in our entire Marketing Department, so encouraging half the team to take off for a week is a unique choice. Where I went and what I did are only small details that bring me to my main point: Vetrazzo is a different kind of company.

This blog will mainly be about the company culture of Vetrazzo. I am trying to have a conversation about a different way of doing business and, though there are some great examples of this here at Vetrazzo, the conversation will not always be about Vetrazzo.

I want to talk about socially responsible business practices such as providing healthcare to all workers or bringing manufacturing back to the USA. I love to write and everyday I see something different and interesting that happens at Vetrazzo or I read about a sustainability trailblazing company like Interface. It’s not hard to see new ways that we push ourselves towards sustainability or find true life events that validate our belief that there is a story in every surface™ we create.

The stories told by the unique types of glass you will find in a Vetrazzo surface are not the only stories about Vetrazzo. It is the stories like mine or our Office Assistant’s goat that eats our lunch leftovers, that truly determine Vetrazzo’s story. More on Mama Goat in the next post...

If you’d like to become a part of the Vetrazzo family please become a fan on Vetrazzo’s Facebook page or follow us on Twitter!