In Vietnam, a life-changing trip to the market

Exotic food spawned passionate questions: ‘I wanted to know everything about it. It was fascinating to me!’

By Clint Talbott

A Vietnamese food market helped set the course of Jessica Farlow-Sibila’s life.

When she was on Semester at Sea, Farlow-Sibila was near the end of her career at the University of Colorado Boulder. She was on track to earn a bachelor’s degree in communication in 2001. But she had, “frankly, gotten a little bored in Boulder.”



A Boulder native, born in Boulder Community Hospital, she’d never before traveled abroad. When she was in Vietnam, there was a “really poignant moment” in which most students with whom she was traveling chose to go shop.

“They were going to go buy clothes or trinkets at a local market, and what I wanted to do was go to the food market,” Farlow-Sibila recalls. No one wanted to go with her. She went alone.

“I remember walking through the market and seeing carcasses of something hanging in 90-degree heat and humidity, and butchers next to fishmongers, and sweet stalls and all kinds of different food that I’d never seen before and in conditions that I’d never experienced in the U.S.,” she said.

One man rode by on a motorcycle carrying six live chickens by the neck. “My thought was, ‘How do you get the feathers off?’ You get the chicken home. Now you’ve got to kill it and pluck the feathers, and then what? How does that work? How long does that take? And what does it look like? I wanted to know everything about it.”

“It was fascinating to me!” She wandered through the market for hours. She stopped by a group of older Vietnamese women squatting by woven baskets filled with an array of fish, dried, fresh, still alive.

“We couldn’t speak the same language, but I could tell that there was a common understanding.” Food was their lingua franca.

The women offered samples, and their love of sharing food inspired Farlow-Sibila.

Farlow-Sibila found the food in the market not just fascinating, but also appealing. “I wanted to cook with it. I wanted to taste it. I wanted to take it home with me.”

We couldn’t speak the same language, but I could tell that there was a common understanding.' Food was their lingua franca.When someone handed her something to taste, “I immediately tried it. There was no question about it. I was just curious and excited.”

When she returned from Semester at Sea, “I realized at that point that I needed to go into the food industry.”

Just one thing: She’d never worked in food before. While shopping one day in Whole Foods Market, she asked a guy behind the meat counter what it took to work there. Soon, she landed a job at the store.

She started off in the bakery and later moved to a “demo coordinating” position, which reported to the marketing director. In the latter capacity, she learned about marketing, corporate events and food events.

From there, she moved up to a marketing-director role at Whole Foods, worked in trade-show operations at New Hope Natural Media, became marketing director for Pet Promise Inc., and then joined WhiteWave Foods in 2007.

She’s worked there since, first as event marketing manager and now as senior manager, corporate philanthropy, community affairs and events.

“Within the last eight years, my role has snowballed as WhiteWave has grown,” Farlow-Sibila says.

Food looms large in Farlow-Sibila’s life. “It’s my hobby. It’s my entertainment. It’s my work. I love to cook. I love to try new things. I love to taste new things.”

“I remember more of the meals that I’ve had sometimes and whom I shared them with on Semester at Sea and when I’ve traveled than the sights that I’ve seen,” Farlow-Sibila says.

She recalls sitting with rickshaw drivers at a noodle-bowl place in a Vietnamese street, sharing beer and soup. “I wanted to taste the real flavors and experience life through food.”

“I think there’s something really magical that happens when people share food,” Farlow-Sibila says. Such experiences happened “over and over again” during Semester at Sea.

“We’d be in Third World countries or very poor areas, and people would have very little. And they were so happy and so excited to see us and so eager to share their food. … I would try everything they gave me, and I would be surprised at how great it tasted.”

Farlow-Sibila’s love of food extends seamlessly into her work at WhiteWave. “The passion for food and the passion to share experiences, the passion to share a meal and have that connection with people is really the basis for everything I do and the way that I live my life.”

She adds that she is “incredibly passionate” about organic foods, about WhiteWave and its products, which include Silk dairy alternatives and Horizon organic milk.

“What I love about my job is that I’m responsible for sharing that passion externally, for helping the community understand who WhiteWave is and why the products we make are important.”

As she spreads the word about her company’s products, she engages in the same activity that captured her imagination in Vietnam: sharing food.

“To share food is very magical.” For those who have Silk yogurt at breakfast, Horizon milk at lunch, International Delight creamer during a coffee break, “I love that we get to be a part of that moment for you. … I just think there’s something really special about that.”

All of this, she adds, “makes it really easy to go to work.”

More broadly, sharing a meal with someone engenders appreciation and respect that could, she says, make the world a bit more peaceful.

“I think it’s much easier to engage with someone when they’re willing to share the little that they have when you’re hungry. I think that’s a philosophy to live by and how I want to experience the world, and it’s because CU gave me that.”

Clint Talbott is director of communications and external relations manager for the College of Arts and Sciences and editor of the College of Arts and Sciences Magazine.

Feb. 27, 2015