At our Nutrilite farms we take our soil health very seriously. It’s a crucial component of organic farming. One way we do this is through composting. We test our compost for nutrient analysis and apply it at specific times during the season to get maximum benefit. At our Trout Lake Farm, that happens twice a year.

When we drop compost on the fields, it must be worked into the soil within a couple hours, otherwise the nutrients will evaporate and the compost will lose its strength.  We use a synchronized process with two GPS-controlled tractors – one dropping the compost, the other following behind tilling it in.

Organic has been a way of life for us long before the term existed, including using compost in our soil.

We were composting in the fifties, as you can see in the top photo taken from our archives. We are composting today: The second photo was taken recently at Trout Lake.

And, we will continue our organic farming and composting practices long into the future – it’s part of our legacy.

Feeding the soil natural materials to yield the healthiest plants is just one way that Nutrilite maintains control of the process — from seed to supplement.

When cofounders Jay Van Andel and Rich DeVos started Amway in 1959, they did not stop with their initial product offering or American footprint. They kept growing by asking themselves, “What if…?”

That same question is still asked each day by our Business Innovations team. Glenn Armstrong, head of the team, talks about it in this video, the first of several we will be posting.

“If you continue to ask yourself, ‘What if?’ it gets you thinking about the possibilities,” Armstrong said. ”What if we had this many distributors? What if Amway supplied these types of products?

“If you ask yourself, ‘What if?’ you find yourself getting used to being outside your comfort zone.”

vimeo Direkt

Today we mark International Women’s Day, a day celebrated since the early 1900s to note the contributions of women to society.

Two of our distributors from Amway Hong Kong had an opportunity recently to make their own contributions.

 Jolly Tsang and Sammy Lee were invited by the Carnation Women’s Association to conduct leadership training to a group of 30 women in the Eastern District of Hong Kong.

Jolly delivered a powerful and persuasive speech about her personal experience with education, her job search, and her path to success as an Amway distributor. Sammy shared her secret to beauty – inside and out.

Thank you, Jolly and Sammy, for setting a wonderful example of leadership and entrepreneurship for the women you spoke to and for women everywhere. And a special thanks to all the women in our company across the world – employees and business owners alike – for all you do.

(Thank you to Cynthia Chin and Yvonne So of Amway Hong Kong for helping with this story.)

Amway launched in 1959 with one of the world’s first biodegradable cleaners, LOC. Why did Amway start with the home care category? As Co-Founder Rich DeVos used to say, “Everybody needs soap.”

More than 50 years later, Amway continues to be a leader in the home care industry, and our executives take that role seriously.

Amway Vice President Catherine Ehrenberger, who works with research & development and quality and regulatory issues, this month was elected chair of the American Cleaning Institute Board of Directors. Her tenure follows that of Amway Vice President George Calvert, who works with supply chain management and research & development and is a past chairman of the organization. He now serves on the Personal Care Products Council Board of Directors

The American Cleaning Institute, formerly The Soap and Detergent Association, represents the $30 billion U.S. cleaning products market. Its members are dedicated to improving health and the quality of life through sustainable cleaning products and practices.

Amway is honored to be a part of that mission.

The distributors who won Amway Europe’s Home Demo Contest this year had an experience they won’t soon forget – including being treated like movie stars while they filmed their winning demonstrations.

But they’re not the only ones: Our research scientists at our World Headquarters won’t forget the Home Demo Contest, either.

“What we saw in the distributor Demo Contest was innovation of applications,” Amway Senior Research Scientist Bob Faber said. “And those innovative applications and innovative uses of product shed new light on what we need to be … in the R&D environment, concentrating on in the future.”

Faber and other researchers praised distributors creativity, imagination and innovation. Watch the video to see the story behind the contest and how much fun – and educational — it was for our researchers.

Congratulations, again, to our winners!

YouTube DirektAmway Home Demo Contest Video

When you think about the Nutrilite story, China is really where it all began.

It was nearly 100 years ago that Carl Rehnborg was living and working in China when the “seed” of an idea came to him: He noticed a difference between the health of people living in towns and those living in the country.

He also noticed they had different diets. That’s when he made the connection between health and nutrition.

This week, a team from our Nutrilite Health Institute in Buena Park, California, is headed back to China to discuss the latest research connecting health to nutrition at the China & Korea Joint International Phytonutrient Symposium.

The mantra “more is better” is often applied to supplements, including phytonutrients, those wonderful things in fruits and vegetables that give them their vibrant colors. But NHI Director of Research and Development Keith Randolph, PhD, will present the case for “better is better.”

What does that mean? If you get the right kinds of phytonutrients in the right amounts, it will buoy your body’s own defense mechanisms.

“This research is in its early stages, but we have data that shows cruciferous vegetables as being particularly potent inducers of antioxidant response within the body,” Randolph said. (To save you a trip to Wikipedia, some examples of cruciferous vegetables are broccoli, cauliflower, bok choy and cabbage.)

Randolph will be joined at the symposium by nine leading nutritionists from Canada, Japan, China and Korea. And it will include opening remarks from Colleen Carkeet, PhD, senior group leader in Global Regulatory Affairs at Amway.

The event is hosted by China Nutrition Society and the Korean Society of Food Science and Technology. Amway China Ltd and Amway Korea are sponsors.

The symposium takes place on Friday. For live updates, follow us on Twitter.

The winners of Amway Europe’s Home Demo contest received their free trip to our World Headquarters this month to have their winning demonstrations professionally produced. The three couples, who came from Russia, Ukraine and Germany, received the star treatment for the duration of their stay while they demonstrated the powerful qualities of our PreWash Spray, L.O.C. Mini Wipes and L.O.C. Multi Purpose Cleaner.  If you want proof, check out our Amway Facebook photo album or this video. These Amway business owners, like all others across the world, truly are the stars of our company.

 It has become pretty important at Amway. LCA, is an internationally recognized way to determine the environmental impact of a product throughout its life cycle. An LCA analyzes the entire production process from raw materials to manufacturing to distribution to “end of life management.” (Can it be recycled or will it go to a landfill?)

 Amway Research Scientist David Byrne recently attended the LCA XII Conference in Tacoma, Washington, and shared the evolution of Amway’s use of LCA and our goal to be recognized as a sustainability leader in the direct sales industry. Here is the gist of his message:

 Amway’s first product, L.O.C., was a phosphate-free, all-purpose cleaner that was one of the first bio-degradable products on the market. It was the first of many products we designed with environmental considerations. The company’s founders did this because it was the right thing to do.

 However, our Independent Business Owners, customers and partners now want to know about our sustainability efforts. That’s why in 2009 Amway started using LCA. As a test case, an LCA helped shape the design of the new eSpring system launched in Japan that year. The result? It used 46% less energy than its predecessor.

Now sustainability requirements are integrated into corporate objectives for all new products and sustainability claims are tested along with performance claims. At Amway, LCA has been used successfully, and it’s gaining recognition inside and outside the company.

Companies have always used stories as a communication tool to articulate authenticity and original content. If a story is compelling enough, it will travel from person to person and convey a captivating snapshot of a brand.

The simple concept of storytelling hasn’t changed, but the medium we choose has.

For a global brand with over 20,000 employees and a presence in more than 100 countries and territories,  storytelling for Amway is not only a priority, it’s an international social media approach.

There is no denying that social media is a powerful and credible force. Right now, there are more than 950 million active monthly users on Facebook. Each day, 200 million photos are uploaded and 3.2 billion “likes” and comments stream across the social site.

We use the traditional storytelling methods such as press releases, but in order to truly capture the Amway experience, we also offer our fans an interactive social hub of posts, tweets, images, videos and blog articles that provide a digitally holistic picture of our global brand.

“Like” us on Facebook for our corporate Amway, Nutrilite, ARTISTRY and eSpring pages and “Follow” us on Twitter at @Amway  and @ARTISTRYTweets to stay connected and updated.

We’re placing another wireless charging award in the trophy case!

This week, Fulton Innovation won the Silver Stevie Award for Electronics Company of the Year. Part of the 2012 American Business Awards, the Stevie Award recognizes achievement in business for companies all over the world.

The Stevie Award follows our success at the 2012 Edison Awards, where Fulton Innovation earned a gold award in the applied technology category for eCoupled wireless power.

Our intelligent wireless power technology finds a home just about everywhere — from restaurant table tops to grocery aisles to parking garages.

This year, Fulton’s Dave Baarman was invited to speak at SXSW  representing us as a founding member of the Wireless Power Consortium – a who’s who of companies leading the wireless charge.

Our congratulations to the Fulton team!