Positive Power of Principled Profit
Volume 4, Number 7—March, 2007

Positive Power Spotlight: Food For Thought Organic Foods

Here's a nice complement to last month's profile of a bicycle-powered trash hauling company: a gourmet foods company with a clear social conscience, selling wild-harvested and/or organic gifts, primarily through an established network of organic grocers around the country.

Products include jams, vinegars, cherry salsa, dried mushrooms and fruits, maple products, honey, mustards, organic coffee, muffin and pancake mixes, personal care products, and even organic cotton t-shirts.

I chose this company to profile because a journalist who was interviewing me about business ethics told me about it. A key principle in my award-wining book Principled Profit: Marketing that Puts People First is the idea that it's much easier to enlist others to spread your message if you're coming from a place of social and environmental responsibility. That a journalist would tell me about this company and even forward me the latest issue of its newsletter is proof of this idea.

This ten-year-old company proudly announces,

"We are devoted to setting an example of corporate responsibility that takes into consideration the impact of all our decisions on both the human and natural environment. If we cannot leave behind a world as good or better than the present, we do not want to be in business. However, we feel that there are sufficient conscientious customers out there to sustain us and many other companies similar to ours."

And

"Gifts that matter. That is our goal. When you give a gift of Food For Thought products you can be assured that we have done our best to bring you gifts that make a difference in the quality of life on this planet. We strive to be a model of corporate responsibility that is expressed, in part, through our unwavering commitment to organic foods. We know that such a commitment has a direct and positive impact on the quality of land and water, and that's just the beginning. Please read our section on "What are Organic Foods." Other examples of our efforts include donating a percentage of our gross earnings to non-profit organizations that work to preserve and protect our human and natural environment. We encourage our staff to take what we call "paid volunteer days" whereby they can volunteer to work for a non-profit organization while we keep them on the payroll. There's a whole lot more that we do to walk gently on this earth in pursuit of sustainable living so please call, write or e-mail us if you'd like more information."

It also features "local heroes" on its website who are not affiliated with the company, but whose message resonates. The first chosen is a peace activist specializing in conflict resolution. (Local, in this case, is Michigan.)

I love the web domain this company has chosen, too: http://www.giftsthatmatter.com

Another Recommended Book: Values Sell: Transforming Purpose into Profit through Creative Sales and Distribution, by Nadine A. Thompson and Angela E. Soper (Berrett-Koehler, 2007)

Almost at the very end of this book is a statement that I feel sums up much of the value in running a values-based business:

"Operating a business in a socially responsible manner can lead to increased sales, strong and effective alliances, and even lucrative company buyouts. And no one is espousing doing poorly financially just so you an be a good corporate citizen. What the companies...demonstrate is that you can create a business with strong core values that support social responsibility, be innovative in your strategies to build sales and form powerful distribution channels, and come out a winner on many levels: by succeeding financially, by furthering your mission within your industry, and by improving society as a whole."

While my own book, Principled Profit, offers a more hands-on approach to learning the marketing skills necessary to turn those values into profit, Values Sell offers a nice roundup of several companies across multiple industries and with widely varying business models. All of them are profitable, many of them are growing rapidly, and all maintain a strong commitment to their values. Additionally, many of them deliver more than their stakeholders--customers, employees, suppliers, neighbors--expect, and that I believe is key as well.

As examples:

* Warm Spirit, a personal care products company oriented primarily to African-Americans, pays its consultants 10 to 15 percent higher commissions than similar companies

* A t-shirt manufacturer was able to save the company when the bottom fell out of the branded domestic apparel market following NAFTA, by educating customers about the benefits of its organic cotton production, and seeking accounts among companies that shares its environmental commitment

* Tweezerman structured a buyout that protected both its values and its workers--something companies like Ben & Jerry's might have learned from--and the company's founder claimed that the purchase price was 50 percent higher because of the company's from-the-start commitment to "responsible capitalism"

* Chaco Sandal Co. has a Minister of Human Resources and Sustainability

The values this book highlights are not just the traditional "triple bottom line" of financial, social, and environmental responsibility, but also focus on such issues as creating empowered employees with strong company-wide support systems, finding appropriate strategic partners (including nonprofit beneficiaries, which Tom's of Maine credits with a remarkable 370 percent increase in business)--and always, the metrics of these policies, such as the 16 percent rise in stock prices of companies rated highly for employee morale, compared to an average of just six percent.

If you'd like to buy this book, please follow this link to buy from a BookSense independent bookseller:
http://www.booksense.com/index.jsp?affiliateId=FrugalFun