Don Vultaggio
Founder & Chairman, AriZona Beverage Company. On 1 show, 1 appearance. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
founderexecutivedrinkarizona.com ↗Wikipedia ↗
Don Vultaggio co-founded AriZona Beverage Company in 1992, building the family-owned business into one of North America's largest ready-to-drink tea brands. He is known for maintaining the 99-cent retail price point on AriZona's 22-ounce can across decades of inflation.
1shows
1appearances
21statements
4resolved
3supported
0contradicted
75%fully supported
Everything Don Vultaggio said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
AriZona recently earned its co-founder's entire buyout amount in one year
“Absolutely. You know, what we earned last year was what to get bought out for, you know.”
Teamsters repeatedly threatened AriZona founders during early beer distribution days
“Yeah, we were threatened a lot, you know, we were threatened by the Teamsters about, you know, you can't do that, you know, that's not allowed, you know, because the Schaefer delivery guy, we were delivering Schaefer.”
Competing iced tea brands cut costs by using fake artificial flavorings
“The typical response in the flavor category was you know, you don't have to put a lot of tea in on a tea, you just put flavor, you can kind of Fake it up. And then I realized that what other guys are not doing is putting real ingredients in because, you know, …”
AriZona's can manufacturing cost is lower today than 33 years ago
“You know, our cost of making a can today is less than it cost us 33 years ago to make the same can.”
AriZona co-founders sometimes went over a year without speaking to each other
“There were times when I didn't speak to him for over a year.”
AriZona built a 1.25 million square foot factory with zero debt
“I built a factory in New Jersey that we needed desperately. You know, I'm very proud of it. It's a 1,250,000 square feet of a building that every single piece of it we own, we paid for. We don't have any company debt. We have no banks. We have no lending insti…”
Founders sold thousands of cases of malt liquor on packaging alone
“And we went to a trade show, John and I, and we sold thousands of cases of it without even having a product yet. It was just the package.”
Vultaggio's beverage business generated $30M to $40M during malt liquor era
“No, no, more than that. Probably 30, forty million.”
AriZona tea was born after watching a Snapple truck unload in NYC
“I was on a store on Broadway in Houston. It was February, 19, 91. I was selling Midnight Dragon, and a Snapple truck pulls up. Snapple, I saw, it happened in New York, because it happened here. It started here in New York and he starts peeling off, like, 40 ca…”
AriZona Beverage Company was originally planned to be named Santa Fe
“Originally the name was Santa Fe.”
AriZona can launch new products in three weeks today
“Today we do something in three weeks because we, you know, we're plugged in, but back then we had to get the can supplier and all that.”
AriZona sold out in nine of ten test stores in first week
“And then we went back on the following week, and nine out of the 10 stores sold the 48 pieces, which is two cases.”
AriZona skyrocketed to $400 million in sales by its third year
“We did a hundred million dollars year two. Then year three, we did, we doubled it, more than doubled it again. So we got to like four hundred million.”
Arnold Palmer is AriZona's second best-selling flavor
“And today it's our second best-selling flavor.”
Vultaggio spent 80 percent of his time on legal battles running AriZona
“During that time, I said I was 70, 80% lawyer, 20% marketer because it took up that much of my time. But I was able to take that 20% of the time and keep running the business and keep growing the business.”
Vultaggio abstained from alcohol and marijuana out of fear of his size
“I also came to the conclusion back then, I said, I'm never gonna drink or smoke marijuana or any of that, because I'm too big, if I'm incapacitated, I'll be too, too hard to handle, so I better not do any of that stuff.”
Snapple was founded by New York window washers and health food owners
“The brand was started by a couple of window washers from New York. One of them had a health health food store, like a health, I guess like a vitamin store.”
Founders initially abandoned iced tea plan fearing they couldn't outcompete Snapple
“On the way home, we stop at seven-eleven. And we buy some Snapple to look at on the way back to Brooklyn, and we kind of talk ourselves out of the tea business, because we said, how are we going to get somebody to buy us over Snapple? How are we going to get t…”
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Don's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 HOW I BUILT THISLEDGER | Founder & Chairman, AriZona Beverage Company | 1 | 21 | 75% 3/4 | full record on How I Built This → |