The power-outage didn’t stop Gary Hirshberg, the co-founder and CEO of Stonyfield Farm, from giving his keynote speech at Bryant University’s semi-annual elevator pitch competition.
I usually attend the many speakers that Bryant brings in to speak to us, as I find them incredibly interesting. I counted down the days until Gary Hirshberg was coming to Bryant. I was so excited because he has written an incredible book titled “Stirring it Up: How to Make Money and Save the World” that I read in a whopping five days. I could not put this book down to the point where I was pushing off homework just to read it. I highly recommend the book to anyone, from the small business owner to the everyday consumer. His style of writing makes the book a page-turner, and there are multiple companies profiled as well.
Gary made many great points during his power-outage keynote, and one was in the first five minutes: Entrepreneurs are either courageous or crazy, but most of the time both. I can definitely relate to that one. There have been some people who have thought that Eddie’s would not have the ability to get our feet off the ground, but we have persevered, and are growing faster than ever. Gary had a similar story of his wife wanting to get out of the yogurt-biz, but he and his partner believed in what they were doing was the right thing to do. Years later, Stonyfield is the largest producer of organic yogurt, and brings in a staggering $300 million in revenue.
A second point that was made was the argument for real-food. All of Stonyfield’s yogurt is organic. It contains no pesticides, preservatives, or funky red dye 40. At Eddie’s, while we do all we can, we are not solely organic. We are constantly working towards a higher quality product. We currently use organic soy flour (purchased from the VT Green Grocer right down the road) in all of our bars and organic peanut butter in our peanut butter chocolate chip bar, a customer favorite. Our bars have a two week shelf life. That means we add no preservatives and no artificial colorings as well. While our bars are a little bit more expensive than the 10 for $10 Power bars, we blow them away on taste, quality, and customer service. Once you taste an Eddie’s, like many customers have said, they will never go back. That’s because our energy bars are real food!
Another great point that Gary made was that there was no mythical place called “away”. This point really drove it home for me, that we need to change how we run the Eddie’s Energy Bars. He pointed out that people believed all the waste moved from their place of business to “away” (which New Hampshire claims is Vermont). Gary thought this was a horrible idea, trucking this away, wasting more fossil fuels, so he was determined to change that. Stonyfield offsets all of their carbon emissions by investing in renewable projects through a partnership with Native Energy based out of Vermont. Just think if all businesses did this. We might actually get those crazy Vermont winters back!
With all of that said, after reading Gary Hirshberg’s book, and listening to him speak, I now have a vested interest in making sure Eddie’s has green practices. Check out what we’re doing to go green already!
Somewhere down the road when I graduate, I envision a sustainable building run on wind and/or solar power that our bars are manufactured in, biodeisel delivery vans, and edible packaging. Crazy, I know, but as Gary says, entreprenuers are either courageous or crazy, or both. I think I’m both.
With green thoughts,
Michael Adams, Owner
Eddie’s Energy Bars
