Here's some photos of the soap I made in last night's class. This batch turned out great and I love the color! Next time I'll add a hair more rosemary essential oil, the lavender and eucalyptus took over. In a month I'll update that album with photos of the soap once it's done curing.

Today I posted a photo on the Ballard Organics Facebook page of me cutting soap that I made in a soap making class. For each soap class I teach I'll make a little extra soap so that everyone in the class has enough to take home. I've been having alot of fun in the classes playing with this excess soap, trying new scent combinations and testing out dyes...one thing with the production at the warehouse is that we're always making soap for wholesale and I don't get to play with new recipes often. The classes have given me a chance to play around a bit which is one of the things for me that makes soap making interesting.

The excess soap from these classes (as well as soap made in the in-store soap making demos at Wholefoods, and soon PCC Natural Markets) has been going to food banks.  I've always wanted to have some way for Ballard Organics to give back to the community. For the last few years Ballard Organics has donated gift bags to schools auctions or benefits for local nonprofits such as LIHI or the Washington Toxics Coalition. Eventually I would like Ballard Organics to donate a portion of the company profits to a local nonprofit such as the Urban Rest Stop.

The Urban Rest Stop (URS) would definately be the nonprofit I would like Ballard Organics to align with. From the URS website: "The Urban Rest Stop provides a clean, safe and welcoming facility where individuals and families can come and use restrooms, shower and laundry facilities. All services are provided at no cost to patrons". When I first moved to Seattle I was homeless for a few months and the URS was one of the great resources that helped me get back on my feet.

Ballard Organics became the Urban Rest Stop's new soap supplier as of January 2010. Once Ballard Organics is large enough I would like the company to donate enough soap to supply the URS but for now we're selling them soap at our cost and below the cost from their previous supplier. Making a contribution to the community is another facet of Ballard Organics that I continue to develop and our new relationship with the URS is a good step in that direction.

Yesturday was our annual inspection by the WSDA for your organic certification and it went great. I'm always nervous about the inspection; we keep good records and follow the NOP guidelines butstill I'm always worried we've dropped the ball on something.

It amazes me how many things there are to keep track of now that the business is getting bigger, it's so different than when I started Ballard Organics in my apartment 4 years ago. Now we've got 9 employees, a retail store, a 7,700 sq.ft. manufacturing site and over 180 stores carrying our products.

I originally sought out organic certification so that my customers would know that Ballard Organics' claims of organic ingredients were true. Though at first the record keeping seemed difficult I am thankful for the tracking ability we now have for every one of our products. One of the requirements of organic certification is that we must be able to track the ingredients in our soaps and be able to say what ingredients made it to the finished product. Every product we make has a lot number so that we can track from the finished product exactly which lots the ingredients came from.

A friend of mine owns a company that produces granola bars. When the tainted peanut butter scare happened last year he was forced to destroy any products he had containing peanut butter because he couldn't prove that his peanut butter didn't come from the effected lots. Lot numbers and tracking batches would have saved him in that situation. Thankfully I've never had any issues with having to recall a product but I like having systems in place so that if anything were ever to occur then Ballard Organics could quickly and easily track the effected products and remove them from the market. The tracking requirement of organic certification is a huge benefit that I didn't foresee when I got certified but I'm glad to have that system in place.