Stonyfield Farm

“I, you know, I always say we can ship the yogurt 3000 miles. It's the last 18 inches that makes all the difference. You get it in people's mouths, and then they're gonna ask for it.”

“And, you know, what you have to know at the punchline of this story is that I wound up by the end of this period with 297 individual investors. There was no way to find common ground with an institutional investor, right? A venture capitalist. Believe me, I kn…”

“And, you know, while we're not the leader in Greek, we are the leader in organic. I mean, I think we're something like 80% of organic yogurt in the U.S., so.”

“Well, by the, by Christmas of 87, you know, running this factory for two months, I can tell you we were already 600,000 dollars in debt. By Christmas of 88, we were 1.9 million dollars in debt. By Christmas of the next year we were 2.7 million dollars in debt.”

“So Samuel was able to get some Catholic nuns to provide a 25,000 dollar grant.”

“So in July of 84, I had my 30th birthday at the farm, and my, I had my old Ultimate Frisbee team come up to visit me, most of whom lived in Cambridge, as you might imagine. And I said, look, It's wonderful you've all come. If you want to give me a really good …”

“In this farmhouse, I always had payroll on Thursday mornings, and by this point, it was a half a million dollar business, and I never had cash in the bank that night before payroll.”

“Those guys have sold us in the 30 years since they've sold us probably 250 or three hundred million dollars worth of fruit.”

“In this farmhouse, I always had payroll on Thursday mornings, and by this point, it was a half a million dollar business, and I never had cash in the bank that night before payroll. Never.”

“What you have to know at the punchline of this story is that I wound up by the end of this period with 297 individual investors. There was no way to find common ground with an institutional investor, right? A venture capitalist. Believe me, I knocked on every …”

“Those guys have sold us in the 30 years since they've sold us probably 250 or three hundred million dollars worth of fruit.”

“If you don't ask, you don't get. And desperation, you know, breeds this thing where you just have no shame anymore. You have to ask.”

“And after paying for his first shipment of cups, he managed to somehow get, continue to get shipments for five months without paying for any more.”

“So we started selling at a dollar 49 a quart, which is the same price Dannon was selling for.”

“So Samuel was able to get some Catholic nuns to provide a 25,000 dollar grant.”

“Well, by the, by Christmas of 87, you know, running this factory for two months, I can tell you we were already 600,000 dollars in debt. By Christmas of 88, we were 1.9 million dollars in debt. By Christmas of the next year we were 2.7 million dollars in debt.”

“98 we're at seventy-eight million in sales. 99, we're at a hundred million in sales and that's when I began negotiating with Danone to have them come in.”

“Worse than that, I had to come up with a 100,000 dollars to take my in, get my inventory out of the building. Because again, we owed them co-packing fees. Now the bank's the owner. And so I had to go, call my shareholders and find a 100,000 dollars within hour…”

“And by 11 a.m. That morning, my first day, I calculated that we were 75,000 dollars in the red.”

“By then, Samuel and I were down to 10% each in the company.”

“The original head of M&A who came to see me said Gary, do you mean to tell me we're going to buy 80% of your company and you'll still be in control? And I said, yes. And the banker and the lawyers and everyone laughed. And, you know, two years later, that's th…”

“My mother-in-law, excuse me. And I started raising, and I got to about two 75, 300. This is sort of a month or so later, she said, well, I think we can increase, and so she increased to a hundred, and eventually I got across the finish line, got the 500.”

“The business is now doing 3.4 million dollars in sales, but we lost 1.4 million that year. The next year, we did 6.5 million in sales, and we lost 900,000. The following year, the second full year in the new factory, we did 10.1 million, and we made 125,000 do…”

“And, you know, while we're not the leader in Greek, we are the leader in organic. I mean, I think we're something like 80% of organic yogurt in the U.S., so.”