Over the past two weeks, my team has joined me to pull back the layers of Splendid Spoon and identify the areas of racism and bias in the business. It is deeply humbling to acknowledge the role that Splendid Spoon has played in the exclusive and predominantly white Wellness world.

We acknowledge that through lack of action and underrepresentation, the Black community may have felt unwelcome in the Splendid Spoon community.

Splendid Spoon exists for one reason, to create healthier and happier communities. We cannot achieve this mission if we don't breakdown and rebuild a brand that is more diverse, smarter, and stronger.

- Nicole Centeno, Founder and CEO

Here are our commitments to our community:

1) OUR COMMITMENT TO HIRING

Our goal is for each layer of the business to have equitable racial representation: from the investors to the board of directors to our daily operations. We acknowledge that we have shortcomings today and commit to adding Black and Brown voices at every layer.

We are starting with our team. Here is where we stand today, and we will release an updated report next year on June 15, 2021.

We are actively revising our recruitment, hiring, and promotion practices to increase Black representation overall, and more specifically in management and leadership roles. We are  reviewing our compensation structure to ensure that it is competitive and equitable, and we are researching new strategies to find talent and limit bias in interviewing for our next open role planned for this Fall.

In addition to tackling hiring, we will:

  • Partner with more Black-owned companies and hire more Black freelance talent for our content, blog, creative and social needs.
  • Provide paid half-days on election day for all team members to have their say in local, state, and federal elections.
  • Observe Juneteenth as a paid holiday to create space for reflection, connection and activism in our communities.

2) OUR COMMITMENT TO OUR COMMUNITY

We have reflected on our community at Splendid Spoon and what voices we’ve chosen to amplify and include. We acknowledge we haven’t been telling the full narrative, and we will do better. We are committed to creating a community that represents the beautiful and diverse plant-based & wellness space paved for us by Black people.

We will proactively build relationships with Black wellness experts and use our influence to amplify their voices and tell stories together. Join us the week of June 21st on @splendid.spoon as we celebrate diversity in wellness with a series, Wellness Week.

3) OUR COMMITMENT TO BLACK VOICES IN FOOD & NUTRITION

Across every culture and race, food is a pathway to our ancestors and part of the connective tissue of our ethnic and racial identities. Moving forward we will pay homage and honor the rich Black culture and history of the ingredients we use across our website and emails.

For our next meal, we will partner with a Black chef. Our goal is to amplify their work and add flavor profiles and meals to our menu that are familiar, comforting and healthy to Black & Brown communities.

4) OUR COMMITMENT TO IMPROVING FOOD ACCESS

The reality is that Americans exist in a food apartheid where wealthy folks have easy access to healthy foods and poor, mostly brown and black folks, are limited in every which way. This is wrong, and we are frankly embarrassed that our ignorance and privilege has blinded us to our role in perpetuating these problems.

We are committing to tackling the racial issue of food apartheid through our partnership with Food Love by Might be Vegan and looking at the accessibility of our product offerings.

To date we have contributed approximately 200 meals to Food Love and are committing to donate 600 meals each month either through monetary donations or in-kind meal donations.

We will look at long-term strategies within our own business structure to tackle problems of food access.

We believe plant-based wellness can change the world — now that we are armed with a more honest view of our business we are confident that we can participate in this change. Now it’s time to get to work!

With gratitude,

Nicole

Questions or suggestions? We would love to hear from you. Email us at [email protected]