Dear Larry and Luna, I was so confused when I saw the first news story of the sale to the dairy. I was glad when someone linked to this letter as I hoped it would offer a reasonable explanation for why a beloved company, making a beloved vegan ice cream, would sell out to a dairy. As a small business owner I can relate to your struggles around growth and the unhappy changes in your daily life. I feel for you on both counts. And while I know that many vegan food products are brought to market by non-vegan corporate conglomerates, Coconut Bliss wasn't one of those products when I started buying it. Each time I've become aware of a conglomerate takeover and/or vegan products being made by companies that profit from animal exploitation, I stopped buying those products and looked for alternatives instead. Of course, you knew that some of your customers would be inclined to do the same after your sale to Lochmead. You wrote the letter for that very reason. Surely you understand the confusion and feelings of betrayal your former customers are expressing here. You know how strongly vegans, once awake to the cruelty inherent in dairy production, feel about abstaining from supporting any company that profits from the exploitation of innocent beings. I don't think there's reason for nasty comments, but I do think it's reasonable for once-happy customers to express their disappointment and disgust. I hope that your version of how this will work bears out. I hope that having that factory dedicated to producing non-dairy products on certain days will eventually mean that they produce less dairy-based product. I don't honestly think that will happen, but it would be swell if it did. In closing there are two questions I'd like to ask. The first is, did you consider reaching out to the vegan community to do fund raising for your expansion? There are comments here from folks saying that unless "we" were willing to put up capital, we should shut up. Of course, I'm pretty certain that "we" were never given that option. It's a shame, because I do believe it could have been a trailblazing first, and might have been wildly successful—especially if people knew it would mean the difference between keeping CB all vegan or having it produced by a dairy. The other question is, you say at the end of your letter that Lochmead suffered financially when they lost Turtle Mountain because TM built their own production facility. Earlier in the letter, you said only dairies had the production facilities necessary to meet the demands CB was experiencing. Was working with Turtle Mountain at their facility ever considered? They have an entirely dairy-free facility and are located in Oregon. It seems working with/selling out to them would have been more favorable than giving your dairy-free product over to a suffering dairy that now gets to use your vegan product to bolster their flagging dairy operation.