cal. Arnie and I were not able to do
this as well as we needed to.
sidering venture capital to also have several different approaches to financing,
such as private investment or a strategic business partnership.
Arnie: Anyone that’s considering venture capital really needs to take stock
of their business objectives. Do they
want to cash out? Do they want to stay
with the business indefinitely? Do they
want to keep the business in the family? When a venture capital group gets
involved, they typically have an exit
strategy from day one. They want to
grow the company to a certain size and
then they want out. Maybe that’s 3 or 5
years, maybe it’s longer. But once you
get involved with venture capital,
you’re getting involved with institutional investors who have an agenda.
They have shareholders or investors
who are expecting an aggressive return
on investment and that can create
pressures that compromise the vision
of the business or force it to grow too
fast. I would advise anyone that’s con-
OP: You call your story “a bittersweet tale.” What is the sweetest part of your story?
Arnie: What we want everyone to understand is that Earth’s Best was not about
us. Ron and I had a dream. Our dream wasn’t to get rich. Our dream was to
help the organic foods industry move from the fringes to the mainstream—and
baby food was the vehicle to do that. We were not going to let the company die
to protect our own interests. Ron and I were devoted to protecting Earth’s Best.
It was our baby and we somehow knew that if it survived, it would be a game-changer and a force to advance the movement. The bitter part of our story is
traumatic, but the sweet part is truly amazing. Millions of babies have grown up
on Earth’s Best. Organic acreage is expanding exponentially. Fewer farmers are
exposed to pesticides. Our success even pushed Gerber, Beech-Nut, and Heinz
into the organic baby food business. And it opened the door for so many people to introduce their own organic food ideas. That’s what we had dreamed
about more than 30 years ago. It doesn’t get much sweeter than that.
Ron: But there is still so much more work to be done. The organic food industry is just a fraction of the overall food industry today. I think that the key to succeeding is having a community where people are working together, knowing
that the importance of the task to build the organic foods industry is much bigger than any individual gain and is necessary for our planet and the health of
everyone on this planet. o
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