[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 19 (Monday, February 6, 2012)]
[Senate]
[Pages S346-S347]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                     RECOGNIZING KING ARTHUR FLOUR

  Mr. LEAHY. Madam President, I would like to bring to the Senate's 
attention the recent accomplishments of King Arthur Flour of Norwich, 
VT.
  Established in 1790, King Arthur Flour has stood the test of time as 
the oldest flour company in the United States. Over the years King 
Arthur Flour has continued to raise the bar as an outstanding Vermont 
company. Most recently the company redesigned its website to allow for 
easier mobile phone and tablet use, placing it in the Hot 100 feature 
of Internet Retailer magazine. This continued focus on technology is 
propelling King Arthur Flour into the future as a cutting-edge company 
to watch.
  As the company has continued to grow and succeed, it has managed to 
stay true to its Vermont roots. King Arthur Flour has flourished as an 
employee stock ownership company (ESOP), a model of business 
stewardship that highlights a strong commitment to the company's 
workforce and the local community. I also appreciate that King Arthur 
Flour has been a long-time participant in the annual Taste of Vermont 
event in Washington, where we bring the finest Vermont products to the 
Nation's capital.
  I wish King Arthur Flour the best of luck as it continues to grow 
both its web presence with new technology and its physical presence 
with a major expansion project set to open this summer. I ask unanimous 
consent that a December 22, 2011, Burlington Free Press article 
highlighting the company's achievements be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

            [From the Burlington Free Press, Dec. 22, 2011]

                       A (Web) Recipe for Success

                           (By Stephen Mills)

       Norwich.--King Arthur Flour is America's oldest flour 
     company, established 1790, a year into George Washington's 
     presidency.
       So how does a company that makes flour and bread--an 
     ancient art--win national awards and acclaim for its business 
     practices in the 21st century?
       Quite simply, the company has become the toast of the town 
     among the technocrati of e-commerce.
       With the economy flagging, many companies turned to 
     enhanced e-retailing to capture more sales, offering free 
     shipping and additional savings for shopping online. King 
     Arthur Flour is no different, relying heavily on its website, 
     kingarthurflour.com, to sell its products and services that 
     can also be found at its ``Norwich, Vermont bakery, school 
     and store''--a sponsorship refrain often heard on Vermont 
     Public Radio, which also calls it ``home'' for its company-
     sponsored studio there.
       But to maximize online sales, King Arthur Flour redesigned 
     its website to allow its offerings to be displayed on any-
     size screen, including phone, tablet or desktop. And it did 
     so without having to write exotic or expensive software 
     programs for each device.
       Company online services director Halley Silver explains: 
     ``Our previous site used a template that was 780 pixels wide. 
     We have moved to a template that adapts its layout from 320 
     pixels wide to 992 pixels wide. This is called a responsive 
     website design. It's not a mobile application, but rather a 
     mobile-friendly website.
       ``We have built a new website that works well across mobile 
     devices and tablet computers, as well as desktops and 
     laptops,'' Silver added. ``We have seen strong growth in 
     mobile and tablet traffic to our site, and also realize that 
     having a usable site while shoppers use their phones in the 
     supermarket and tablets in the kitchen is critical to our 
     success online.''
       The result has been explosive mobile sales growth for the 
     company by shoppers using hand-held smartphones and tablets, 
     up 14 percent in September compared with just 2 percent for 
     the comparable month last year. The sales spike was 5 percent 
     from tablets such as iPads, and 9 percent from mobile phones.
       The company's success compares favorably with online sales 
     figures just out for all retailers showing a 15 percent 
     increase over Thanksgiving, the nation's busiest shopping 
     period, compared with last year, and even better than those 
     for mobile devices, which increased 7.4 percent, according to 
     data from IBM Benchmark.
       Company CEO Steve Voigt said: ``I have long been a big 
     supporter of online efforts and it is very encouraging to see 
     all the success which our customers and we enjoy by our 
     efforts to-date. . . . Baking seems custom-made for the 
     online community; a little online chat, then a little offline 
     baking.''


                              Net royalty

       Voigt is demur about the company's financial success, 
     noting figures for the private company are ``confidential.'' 
     But according to the Internet Retailer Top 500 Guide, King 
     Arthur Flour reported online sales of $15.15 million in 2010. 
     Voigt did say the company has $96 million in annual revenues 
     for the most recent fiscal year.
       Internet Retailer magazine, a leading tracker of e-
     commerce, picked the company for its Hot 100 feature in the 
     December issue. The Hot 100 are not ranked but represent the 
     nation's the most interesting innovations in online retailing 
     this year.
       Under the article heading, ``Mobile Drives Design,'' the 
     publication notes: ``Founded in 1790, baking ingredient and 
     bakeware retailer King Arthur Flour is both the oldest brand 
     in this year's Internet Retailer Hot 100 and one of the most 
     forward-looking.''
       The article added, ``King Arthur's `mobile first' approach 
     to Web design exemplifies an elegant solution to Web 
     merchants'' growing challenge of designing for multiple 
     access devices.''
       Internet Retailer also has asked Silver to be a featured 
     speaker at its annual Internet Retailer Web Design and 
     Usability Conference 2012 in Orlando, Fla., in February. It 
     refers to her as King Arthur's ``secret ingredient'' who 
     ``mixes common sense with tech know-how.''
       As Silver said she will explain in the session she'll call, 
     ``The Mobile-First Approach to Web Multi-Platform Design,'' 
     one key element in the redesigned site is the use of a Web 
     design language called CSS3 (cascading style sheets) that 
     presents images and product information differently depending 
     on the visitor's device and browser.
       ``For a small company, King Arthur Flour is a very 
     innovative retailer,'' magazine editor Don Davis said in a 
     phone interview. Of Silver, he said, ``She is someone who is 
     as innovative as anyone at Amazon for the cool stuff they're 
     doing.
       ``One of the things that's so impressive is that she's 
     extremely knowledgeable about the intricacies of e-commerce 
     and Web technology, an area that's constantly changing, while 
     at the same time has a grasp of her company's business 
     goals,'' Davis said. ``It's not that often you find 
     someone fluent in the language of bits and bytes who also 
     understands the overarching importance of the bottom 
     line.''
       How does Silver feel about all the attention she's 
     receiving?
       ``I still am somewhat amazed that a company selling flour 
     and ingredients online can be seen as an inspiration and used 
     as an example to other online retailers,'' she said.


                          Building visibility

       Other online innovations Silver has brought to the company 
     include:
       two website redesigns.
       a 55 percent increase in completed checkout sales after 
     adding items to the cart by streamlining the process and 
     offering further discounts for additional items.
       tools that help website designers face the difficult 
     challenge of displaying multiple fonts while sticking with a 
     site's branded look.
       the launch of the Bakers' Banter Blog.
       This year, 32 videos were also posted to the website to 
     help customers better-appreciate the ``farm-to-plate'' 
     relationship with mostly Midwestern farmers who supply much 
     of the grain for King Arthur's flours.
       Born in Cleveland and raised in New York City, London and 
     San Francisco and eventually Vermont, Silver was a math major 
     at Wesleyan University. She moved through a number of posts 
     centered on Web technology, including the former Internet 
     shopping

[[Page S347]]

     search portal Excite@Home, and Internet security firm 
     VeriSign. She also built and launched Hoofpicks.com, a free, 
     Web-based, equestrian-event management service.
       She joined King Arthur Flour in 2007 because of her passion 
     for baking. ``Cooking and baking have been a hobby of mine 
     since a very early age,'' she said. ``To be able to combine 
     that passion with building for the Web has been a wonderful 
     experience.''
       What else is in the offing for the company online?
       ``We hope to expand our presence in the mobile and tablet 
     space, and continue to improve all of our offerings online,'' 
     she said.
       One new development is a Google ad about the company, 
     filmed in October that began airing Nov. 27. A longer version 
     of the ad is available only on YouTube at: http://
www.youtube.com/watch&?v=nzjcA2a 
     WILo&feature=channel_video_title.
       Collectively, Silver and the 255 workers at the employee-
     owned business have won a host of awards that include: the 
     2011 Vermont Governor's Award for Outstanding Workplace 
     Safety in the Large Business category; the 2011 Magnus Opus 
     Awards for its bi-monthly newsletter, The Baking Sheet; the 
     2007 Business Innovator of the Year Award from the Hanover 
     Area Chamber of Commerce; the 2006 Outstanding Vermont 
     Business Award; the 2006 Best Place to Work Award; and the 
     2006 Better Business Bureau Local Torch Award for Excellence.
       The company is also one of the nation's few to attain B-
     Corporation status because of its beneficial balance between 
     ``people, planet and profit.''
       Some of the many ways it does so is through donating to 
     local food shelves within a 100-mile radius; the Life Skills 
     Bread Baking Program for 155,000-plus students nationwide, 
     teaching them to bake bread themselves and for the hungry; a 
     corporate volunteer program that provides paid time-off for 
     employees as volunteers in the community (in 2010, 123 
     employees volunteered 1,075 hours); annual employee 
     participation in Green Up Vermont Day; Winterbake, when 
     employees bake bread for donation to local food pantries 
     annually on the Martin Luther King, Jr. day of service; a 
     food-diversion program that donates old baking products to 
     local farmers for animal feed or composting; the use of eco-
     friendly certified cleaners in all company facilities and 
     available to employees for home use at $1 per bottle; and 
     participation in the Bike/Walk to Work Day program.


                             Living history

       The company has come a long way from its origins. King 
     Arthur Flour began in 1790 as the Sands Taylor & Wood Co., a 
     retailer of specialty flours and cookbooks and baked goods, 
     based in Boston.
       Founded by Henry Wood, primarily an importer and 
     distributor of English-milled flour, the business grew 
     quickly. A partner, Benjamin Franklin Sands, took over the 
     company in 1870, and in 1886, the firm introduced a premium 
     brand of flour.
       At that time, a partner attended a performance of the 
     musical ``King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table'' 
     that inspired the name of the new product, King Arthur Flour 
     (and its current logo). The brand was introduced at the 
     Boston Food Fair on Sept. 10, 1896, to great fanfare.
       Subsequently, during ownership changes, retail flour sales 
     declined, and the company expanded into commercial baking 
     equipment in the 1960s, and other retail products, including 
     a line of coffee and prepared pie fillings. In 1978, the 
     company sold its other interests and returned to a core flour 
     business, and moved to Norwich in 1984.
       Today, new things are cooking at the company.
       The Norwich site is undergoing massive changes, with the 
     expansion of the bakery (to 3,400 square feet), baking 
     education center (3,400 square feet), store (4,700 square 
     feet), and cafe (2,200 square feet with seating for 75). The 
     offsite administration offices and recipe-testing center will 
     also be housed under the same roof, and continue to be 
     affectionately known as Camelot. Also offsite nearby is the 
     manufacturing center, known as Avalon. Begun in June, the 
     work will be completed in July. Artist renderings of the new 
     digs, work progress and historic detail about the company can 
     be found at www.kingarthurflour.com/ourstore/
renovations.html.
       The company could certainly use the space, officials said. 
     Business was booming one day a few weeks ago, with shoppers 
     packed into the store all day long, looking for seasonal 
     comestibles, while the cafe did a brisk trade in fresh 
     pastries and coffee. ``This is our peak season, with 
     Thanksgiving, Hanukkah and Christmas,'' public relations 
     coordinator Terri Rosenstock said.
       Across the courtyard, bakers were busy making bread, pizza 
     and croissants, and the baking school was fully booked for a 
     pastry class.
       ``We have a lot of people with pie-crust and yeast anxiety 
     right now,'' quipped the instructor.

                          ____________________