October 25, 2004
Pressure cooker | A battle with cancer turns up the heat for the owners of Pemberton's Gourmet Foods
By Taylor Smith
Pemberton's Gourmet Foods, a Gray-based specialty foods manufacturer, had been growing steadily since its inception in 2002, posting double-digit annual sales growth and each year adding new products and expanding its national reach. Early this year, owners Jeff and Sarah Johnson laid out a raft of new strategies designed to keep the company building on its previous successes. In addition to developing new Pemberton's products, the pair began overhauling the company's mail-order business and searching for a public relations firm to launch a national marketing campaign.
But in April, all that planning came to a sudden halt when Sarah was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. The Johnsons' focus shifted from their six-employee, $500,000 business to Sarah's treatment ˆ which began immediately with surgery and rounds of chemotherapy at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston ˆ and the welfare of their three kids, aged seven to 13. In short, neither Jeff nor Sarah had any expectations of how Sarah's illness would affect the business. "We weren't sure what the future would bring," says Sarah. "We just dealt with it one day at a time."
As owners of the business, Jeff and Sarah are the company's management team, overseeing a warehouse manager and a kitchen crew of four. As a result, the Johnsons have been key to the success of Pemberton's Gourmet Foods: Jeff handled much of the marketing and distribution work for the company's dozens of products ˆ from jars of high-end chocolate sauce and mango salsa to a line of gourmet pancake, muffin and scone mixes ˆ while Sarah shouldered the business' financial and operational burdens.
When Sarah began her rigorous cancer treatment schedule, there wasn't another Pemberton's employee who could immediately step in and fill her role. A family friend was able to pick up some of the slack, but Jeff still found himself being drawn away from his typical duties to handle operational issues or bookkeeping.
As a result, their on-the-fly strategy to handle Sarah's absence was to postpone the big initiatives they had been planning. Product development also was put on the back burner, as Jeff and Sarah figured they could make do with the company's current roster of mixes, sauces, salsas and syrups. "It wasn't a time to make any big, ambitious plans," says Jeff. "We really had to focus on making and selling things."
Talk therapy
Meredith Burgess, president of Burgess Advertising & Associates in Portland, can easily relate to the predicament at Pemberton's. In 1999, Burgess was diagnosed with breast cancer. What followed was 18 months of intensive treatment, including regular chemotherapy ("It's like Drano running through your veins," jokes Burgess), 17 operations and a host of misdiagnoses and allergic reactions. Though she wasn't up to handling the day-to-day operations at her firm, Burgess still found ways to stay involved. She credits her staff of 18 with keeping the company prosperous during her recovery. "I'm very grateful to my employees that I had a company to come back to," she says, adding that Burgess Advertising not only retained its full roster of clients, but signed up a handful of new accounts.
She lauds the efforts of her staff, but Burgess also credits the company's team-oriented structure for keeping business running smoothly during her absence. (See "Handling trouble," p. 17.) That management strategy had been in the works for roughly six months before Burgess was diagnosed, dating back to a corporate retreat that in part focused on extricating Burgess from her involvement with day-to-day operations. "One of my goals was to make myself not quite as deeply involved so I could work more on where the organization was going," says Burgess. "There are a lot of type-A managers out there who think the sun rises and sets on them, and that really handicaps your company."
Meanwhile, Burgess made the difficult decision to go public with her cancer ˆ against the advice of some colleagues in the local advertising world, who feared the news would spur competitors to cherrypick some of Burgess Advertising's clients. Burgess recalls explaining the situation to Stan Bennett, the president of Portland-based Oakhurst Dairy, Burgess Advertising's biggest client. She called him just hours after learning of her cancer diagnosis. "I asked that he hang in there long enough, and assured him that we'd do all the great work we'd always done for them, but that it would be a little bumpy," says Burgess. "He said, 'Don't worry about us, we'll be there for you.'"
At Pemberton's, Jeff and Sarah Johnson took a similar tack. They kept a number of their suppliers, distributors and customers up to date about Sarah's condition. Some local customers offered to pick up their orders from Pemberton's Gray location, while others have volunteered to pitch in on the production side. The Johnsons also found a strong network of support in their community in Yarmouth. For example, a group of friends keep up with Sarah's treatment schedule via a specially designed website that doubles as a sign-up sheet to help coordinate meals and rides for the Johnsons' kids.
Shifting gears
While Burgess Advertising was fortunate to have a large enough staff in place to absorb the prolonged absence of a key figure, Pemberton's lost a big chunk of its managerial heft when Sarah was diagnosed with cancer. The Johnsons estimate the company's revenues are down 10% this year, after years of growth in the 10% range.
But, at the same time, Pemberton's relatively small size worked in the company's favor. When Sarah was diagnosed, she and Jeff weren't forced to wade through layers of employees and management before shifting strategic gears. When the pair decided to hold off on expansion plans and mail-order initiatives, directives didn't need to work their way down the management chain.
Jeff and Sarah founded the company as Longmeadow Specialty Foods in 2000 after acquiring and merging two small Maine-based gourmet food companies, Stash Foods and Fancy Fair Distributors. The pair had heavy experience in the marketing world, with years of working with food industry clients such as Nabisco and Ocean Spray, and figured that they knew enough about brand marketing in the food industry to successfully tackle the specialty foods market ˆ a segment that the Johnsons felt offered better margins and smaller volumes than the mainstream food industry. The company in 2002 was rebranded as Pemberton's Gourmet Foods, and moved from Bremen to its current location in Gray.
Despite the current slowdown, which Jeff attributes mainly to being less aggressive in the wholesale market, news on the business front hasn't been all bad. Pemberton's recently inked a deal with a Canadian specialty foods distributor at the New York Fancy Food Show, a trade show held each summer by the New York-based National Association for the Specialty Food Trade. (While Sarah skipped this year's show, Jeff brought along two family members to help handle Pemberton's booth.) That deal has resulted in lower shipping costs to Canada, allowing Pemberton's to send bulk shipments to the distributor rather than shipping individual packages to the more than 50 retailers it serves across the border.
That followed another Pemberton's deal with a west coast distributor. That distributor's locations in Seattle and San Francisco have helped Pemberton's become more competitive on pricing thanks to lower shipping rates; Jeff says, prior to the distribution deal, he'd have to mark up a jar of Death by Chocolate dessert sauce by $2 to offset the cost of shipping. What's more, distribution and a network of 10 regional sales representatives have helped expand the company's market ˆ a long-term goal for Pemberton's. "We don't want to be a regional brand," says Jeff. "Our vision for the future is to be a truly national brand."
Roughly 70% of Pemberton's sales are to specialty food distributors and retailers, while the balance of the company's revenues comes from its role as a co-packer, meaning Pemberton's manufactures, packages and ships specialty food products for other companies under that company's label. Jeff says Pemberton's handles recipes for "several" of these clients in New England. Of Pemberton's sales to distributors and retailers, roughly 50% come from outside of New England. Jeff eventually would like to boost that percentage, driving a higher mix of revenues from other U.S. and Canadian markets.
Meanwhile, Jeff and Sarah are content to hold off on plans to expand Pemberton's while Sarah finishes her treatment; she's scheduled for a final chemotherapy session later this month, which will be followed by another surgery in November. In the meantime, the pair will continue to focus on their core business, and, as Jeff puts it, not spending too much time on the what-ifs. The Johnsons admittedly have been running Pemberton's with the determination to just get through this year. While the loss of business isn't taken lightly, Jeff says it could have been much worse. "Will business be better next year? For sure," says Jeff. "Just being down 10% is a success."
But in April, all that planning came to a sudden halt when Sarah was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. The Johnsons' focus shifted from their six-employee, $500,000 business to Sarah's treatment ˆ which began immediately with surgery and rounds of chemotherapy at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston ˆ and the welfare of their three kids, aged seven to 13. In short, neither Jeff nor Sarah had any expectations of how Sarah's illness would affect the business. "We weren't sure what the future would bring," says Sarah. "We just dealt with it one day at a time."
As owners of the business, Jeff and Sarah are the company's management team, overseeing a warehouse manager and a kitchen crew of four. As a result, the Johnsons have been key to the success of Pemberton's Gourmet Foods: Jeff handled much of the marketing and distribution work for the company's dozens of products ˆ from jars of high-end chocolate sauce and mango salsa to a line of gourmet pancake, muffin and scone mixes ˆ while Sarah shouldered the business' financial and operational burdens.
When Sarah began her rigorous cancer treatment schedule, there wasn't another Pemberton's employee who could immediately step in and fill her role. A family friend was able to pick up some of the slack, but Jeff still found himself being drawn away from his typical duties to handle operational issues or bookkeeping.
As a result, their on-the-fly strategy to handle Sarah's absence was to postpone the big initiatives they had been planning. Product development also was put on the back burner, as Jeff and Sarah figured they could make do with the company's current roster of mixes, sauces, salsas and syrups. "It wasn't a time to make any big, ambitious plans," says Jeff. "We really had to focus on making and selling things."
Talk therapy
Meredith Burgess, president of Burgess Advertising & Associates in Portland, can easily relate to the predicament at Pemberton's. In 1999, Burgess was diagnosed with breast cancer. What followed was 18 months of intensive treatment, including regular chemotherapy ("It's like Drano running through your veins," jokes Burgess), 17 operations and a host of misdiagnoses and allergic reactions. Though she wasn't up to handling the day-to-day operations at her firm, Burgess still found ways to stay involved. She credits her staff of 18 with keeping the company prosperous during her recovery. "I'm very grateful to my employees that I had a company to come back to," she says, adding that Burgess Advertising not only retained its full roster of clients, but signed up a handful of new accounts.
She lauds the efforts of her staff, but Burgess also credits the company's team-oriented structure for keeping business running smoothly during her absence. (See "Handling trouble," p. 17.) That management strategy had been in the works for roughly six months before Burgess was diagnosed, dating back to a corporate retreat that in part focused on extricating Burgess from her involvement with day-to-day operations. "One of my goals was to make myself not quite as deeply involved so I could work more on where the organization was going," says Burgess. "There are a lot of type-A managers out there who think the sun rises and sets on them, and that really handicaps your company."
Meanwhile, Burgess made the difficult decision to go public with her cancer ˆ against the advice of some colleagues in the local advertising world, who feared the news would spur competitors to cherrypick some of Burgess Advertising's clients. Burgess recalls explaining the situation to Stan Bennett, the president of Portland-based Oakhurst Dairy, Burgess Advertising's biggest client. She called him just hours after learning of her cancer diagnosis. "I asked that he hang in there long enough, and assured him that we'd do all the great work we'd always done for them, but that it would be a little bumpy," says Burgess. "He said, 'Don't worry about us, we'll be there for you.'"
At Pemberton's, Jeff and Sarah Johnson took a similar tack. They kept a number of their suppliers, distributors and customers up to date about Sarah's condition. Some local customers offered to pick up their orders from Pemberton's Gray location, while others have volunteered to pitch in on the production side. The Johnsons also found a strong network of support in their community in Yarmouth. For example, a group of friends keep up with Sarah's treatment schedule via a specially designed website that doubles as a sign-up sheet to help coordinate meals and rides for the Johnsons' kids.
Shifting gears
While Burgess Advertising was fortunate to have a large enough staff in place to absorb the prolonged absence of a key figure, Pemberton's lost a big chunk of its managerial heft when Sarah was diagnosed with cancer. The Johnsons estimate the company's revenues are down 10% this year, after years of growth in the 10% range.
But, at the same time, Pemberton's relatively small size worked in the company's favor. When Sarah was diagnosed, she and Jeff weren't forced to wade through layers of employees and management before shifting strategic gears. When the pair decided to hold off on expansion plans and mail-order initiatives, directives didn't need to work their way down the management chain.
Jeff and Sarah founded the company as Longmeadow Specialty Foods in 2000 after acquiring and merging two small Maine-based gourmet food companies, Stash Foods and Fancy Fair Distributors. The pair had heavy experience in the marketing world, with years of working with food industry clients such as Nabisco and Ocean Spray, and figured that they knew enough about brand marketing in the food industry to successfully tackle the specialty foods market ˆ a segment that the Johnsons felt offered better margins and smaller volumes than the mainstream food industry. The company in 2002 was rebranded as Pemberton's Gourmet Foods, and moved from Bremen to its current location in Gray.
Despite the current slowdown, which Jeff attributes mainly to being less aggressive in the wholesale market, news on the business front hasn't been all bad. Pemberton's recently inked a deal with a Canadian specialty foods distributor at the New York Fancy Food Show, a trade show held each summer by the New York-based National Association for the Specialty Food Trade. (While Sarah skipped this year's show, Jeff brought along two family members to help handle Pemberton's booth.) That deal has resulted in lower shipping costs to Canada, allowing Pemberton's to send bulk shipments to the distributor rather than shipping individual packages to the more than 50 retailers it serves across the border.
That followed another Pemberton's deal with a west coast distributor. That distributor's locations in Seattle and San Francisco have helped Pemberton's become more competitive on pricing thanks to lower shipping rates; Jeff says, prior to the distribution deal, he'd have to mark up a jar of Death by Chocolate dessert sauce by $2 to offset the cost of shipping. What's more, distribution and a network of 10 regional sales representatives have helped expand the company's market ˆ a long-term goal for Pemberton's. "We don't want to be a regional brand," says Jeff. "Our vision for the future is to be a truly national brand."
Roughly 70% of Pemberton's sales are to specialty food distributors and retailers, while the balance of the company's revenues comes from its role as a co-packer, meaning Pemberton's manufactures, packages and ships specialty food products for other companies under that company's label. Jeff says Pemberton's handles recipes for "several" of these clients in New England. Of Pemberton's sales to distributors and retailers, roughly 50% come from outside of New England. Jeff eventually would like to boost that percentage, driving a higher mix of revenues from other U.S. and Canadian markets.
Meanwhile, Jeff and Sarah are content to hold off on plans to expand Pemberton's while Sarah finishes her treatment; she's scheduled for a final chemotherapy session later this month, which will be followed by another surgery in November. In the meantime, the pair will continue to focus on their core business, and, as Jeff puts it, not spending too much time on the what-ifs. The Johnsons admittedly have been running Pemberton's with the determination to just get through this year. While the loss of business isn't taken lightly, Jeff says it could have been much worse. "Will business be better next year? For sure," says Jeff. "Just being down 10% is a success."
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