General (Details)

3 Months Ended

Mar. 31, 2012

Dec. 31, 2011

General [Line Items]

Number of reportable segments

3

3

Number of brands

50

Description of effect on previously reported segment information for change in composition of reportable segments

In the fourth quarter of 2011, our Chief Executive Officer, who is our chief operating decision maker, changed the way he determines strategy and investment plans for our operations. As a result, beginning in the fourth quarter of 2011, our Fresh Dairy Direct and Morningstar operations were separated so that our three reporting segments now consist of Fresh Dairy Direct, WhiteWave-Alpro and Morningstar. This change reflects the divergence between the go-to-market strategies, customer bases and objectives of our businesses and reflects a change in how we expect to deploy our capital in the future. We believe these revised segments have increased internal focus and offered management and investors improved visibility into the performance of the segments against their specific objectives. All segment results set forth herein have been recast to present results on a comparable basis. These changes had no impact on consolidated net sales or operating income.

WhiteWave And Hero Group [Member]

General [Line Items]

Percentage of joint venture owned

50.00%