Meet our partner, Vitamix Foundation

In 2014, Vitamix Corporation, the successful manufacturer of high-performance blending equipment, established the Vitamix Foundation to advance its values and commitment to empowering people to live healthy lives. The Vitamix Foundation exists to advance the knowledge, access, and enjoyment of plant-based whole foods with a special focus on pregnancy and early childhood. In the first 10 years of the Foundation’s history, they have committed over $4 million in grants to support initiatives that address maternal and child nutrition across the United States.  

While the Vitamix Foundation understands and supports the importance of a nutritious diet across the lifespan, trying to influence every aspect of nutrition can feel like too large of a problem to tackle. The Foundation focuses its efforts to improve access and quality of maternal and child nutrition as these critical points in life, a healthy pregnancy and early childhood, can have lifelong effects on maternal and child health outcomes.  

As stated by Natalie Haynes, Executive Director of the Vitamix Foundation, access to healthy foods and a stress-free environment during pregnancy nurtures both mother and child, helping prevent future health issues and fostering a lifetime of well-being.

To reach as many people as possible, the Vitamix Foundation seeks to build a dynamic and wide network of partners. Understanding the mission and goals of their grantees is critical to success. “Together, we can achieve far more than we ever could alone,” Haynes said. “The challenges are massive, but with bold thinking and strong partnerships, we can overcome them."

In recent years, one standout partnership is with the Teaching Kitchen Collaborative (TKC). This program focuses on establishing nutrition competencies for health professionals to provide more substantial nutrition training for providers and impact medical schools, hospitals, health-related training facilities, and health systems. This project has created a critical consensus among experts that will help to overcome major barriers and gaps in how medical professionals approach the prevention and treatment of diet-related, chronic diseases.  

Abby Szabo, Program Manager for the Vitamix Foundation, said this partnership is especially unique because the Foundation typically offers grants to organizations that directly serve one population. However the partnership with TKC, Szabo said, focuses on systemic change that has the potential impact broad populations.

As for their work in the Hunger, Nutrition and Health Action Collaborative, Haynes said the momentum for the partnership with the CDC Foundation came from the White House Conference on Hunger, Nutrition, and Health in 2022.  

“Everyone’s recognizing there’s a problem we have in our society,” Haynes said. “The White House conference amplified that message, ‘How do we work together to solve the problem?’”

The ultimate goal of this partnership, Haynes explained, is to end hunger and improve health, starting with raising awareness about the vital connection between nutrition and well-being. While health challenges persist across the country, there are clear paths for change.    

Haynes emphasized the need for transformative change, expressing a vision for a healthier nation. “We strive to see significant improvements in public health — a future where rates of diabetes, obesity, and cardiometabolic disorders decline, paving the way for a stronger, healthier population and a thriving nation."

The Vitamix Foundation hopes this collaboration will foster meaningful connections between organizations that might not have crossed paths otherwise. Szabo highlighted that collectives like the Hunger, Nutrition, and Health Action Collaborative offer a platform for discovering innovative partnerships, unlocking new possibilities for impactful solutions.

“The problem thrives on those gaps existing,” Szabo said. “Where we can find ways to bridge them and to work through them, I think that’s where you’re going to have those opportunities for change to happen.”  

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