The company actively supports animal rights and vegetarian groups including Eating with Consciousness and the Chicago Vegetarian Society. The decor has a noble purpose, as well. On long summer afternoons, as zoo guests wait in line for a Cascadian Farms ice cream bar, their eyes may rest on one of these postcards, perhaps learning about an important way that they can protect the environment. It sells Organic Valley's hot dogs, produced without pesticides, antibiotics, hormones, nitrates, nitrites, or preservatives. Shaker, the Midwest Sales Manager for Organic Valley, noted that it is fitting that an internationally renowned zoo like Brookfield offers guests the option of buying meats and dairy products that are humanely produced.
Organic Valley has a stellar reputation regarding the ethical and humane treatment of farm animals.
Their farmers often go beyond the standards outlined by the National Organic Program, which include giving farm animals adequate feed, nutritional supplements, sanitary housing, and freedom of movement. Many Organic Valley farmers choose, for example, to accept less than fifty pounds of milk per cow per day, in contrast to conventional farmers, who usually expect seventy. This practice reduces stress on the cows and lengthens their lives. Those other creatures include the birds who thrive where shade-grown coffee is cultivated. Three Brookfield Zoo volunteers invited zoo guests to stop at their tent and compare the aromas of coffee beans in two identical glass jars.