Farmer- Met Three Business Challenges
As a child, he fell in love with farming, but he decided to raise a more interesting crop, for which he found new uses to market, expanding sales nationwide. Along the way, he had to overcome multiple challenges which could happen to any product production business.
FAMILY BACKGROUND
DC was born into a family of farmers. His paternal grandfather was a Danish immigrant who bought a farm and raised plums, which was good, steady work. DC’s father joined the family business to raise plums. His mother was a homemaker.
CHILDHOOD THOUGHTS OF AN ADULT CAREER
DC wanted to be a farmer like his father and grandfather, but he found raising plums to become prunes “a dull business.” So, he intended to raise a different crop, for which there was much less competition with other farmers growing and trying to sell the exact same crop.
EDUCATION
After high school graduation, DC enrolled in college but left after a few years when a business opportunity became available to DC and his brother.
FARMING CAREER
Following the death of both parents, DC and his brother sold the family farm, which provided a down payment on different acreage to continue farming but with different crops. They planted lima beans, sugar beets and, as an afterthought, 10 acres of garlic.
Within a decade, the farm, which they called a ‘Ranch’ was the country’s largest grower of garlic, with thousands of acres planted near their original farm plot plus many more acres of garlic planted on land within a nearby valley.
As demand for garlic grew, DC branched into all sorts of garlic packaging – peeled, pickled, pesto, chopped, crushed and roasted.
FIRST CHALLENGE – CHEAP IMPORTS
The ranch, and the garlic industry in general, faced financial headwinds as cheap imports from overseas, in particular China, undercut sales. The company’s output dropped by about a third, to 45 million pounds annually.
As a hedge, DC started importing about 10 percent of his garlic to package into low-cost, off-brand products. He also started to boost his ranch’s brand as an American-grown, heirloom produce, with unique, full flavors.
SECOND CHALLENGE – ALLEGED UNFAVORABLE BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP
The company’s dealings in China brought negative publicity when Netflix released a segment of a documentary about “Big Garlic” prominently featuring the company’s ranch. The documentary accused DC’s ranch of buying produce from a Chinese company that used forced labor. DC and his company disagreed with the underlying accusation and pushed back, threatening legal action and asking the U.S. Department of Commerce to investigate the true facts, which issued a report concluding there was no such evidence of any of the ranch’s foreign business connections being involved in forced labor.
Editor’s note – Unfortunately, an ultimately false allegation often produces days of negative news reports within tv and radio, in contrast to less attention to a later investigation report denying the validity of the original allegations, which by then have become solidly entrenched within the minds and decreased purchases of former customers.
CAREER SATISFACTION
During the course of his farming career, DC turned a humble, much-maligned, odiferous (smelly – often called “The Stinking Rose”) bulb of garlic into a staple in millions of American homes, while elevating the home area of his ranch into The Garlic Capital Of the World.
DC truly loved garlic, believing it to be a ‘Super Food’ with many medicinal and health benefits. Eventually, DC was informally known as “The Garlic King.”
Along with other, local garlic farming enthusiasts, DC decided to create a garlic festival, for which his farm would serve as the host. They thought the festival would draw a few thousand people but instead, more than 15,000 attended the first year. Within a few more years, more than 100,000 attendees noshed on garlic bread and sipped garlic wine, made with crops donated by DC’s farm. A TV show, “The Iron Chef” directed contestants, combined with Food Network celebrities to cook up garlic-centric dishes, while posing for photos with “Herbie” the festival’s mascot.
Editor’s note: Creating an event to attract the public to visit your business and sample your product in new and varied ways, is a brilliant strategy for creating relatively inexpensive publicity.
Garlic festivals and cookbooks rode the wave of increasing public interest in garlic in American, where sales nationwide more than tripled from 1975 to 1994, from 140 million to 493 million pounds.
“We’ve made garlic fun” said DC to the authors of a book “Garlic Garlic Garlic: More than 200 Exceptional Recipes for the World’s Most Indispensable Ingredient.”
THIRD CHALLENGE – CRIMINAL INCIDENT ON BUSINESS PROPERTY
When a random gunman fired into a crowd attending a festival at the ranch, killing 3 and wounding 17 others, DC had to cancel its profitable festival “for the foreseeable future” which remains unknown since several individuals who had been physically injured, filed a claim against the festival, based on failure to provide adequate security. In addition, the local government raised its insurance coverage requirements, which resulted in a steep increase in the cost of insurance.
Fortunately for DC’s business, profits were not largely dependent on the success of the one annual festival but instead, were based on product sales over 12 months.
This story is based on an obituary written by Clay Risen, published within The New York Times on 12/27/22.
