The story chronicles the start and explosive growth of what is now an International brand. Newman’s Own products can be found in just about any grocery store. It started as a Christmas tradition, mixing up a batch of Mr. Newman’s Salad dressing in an old barn at his home in Connecticut, bottling it up and passing it out to neighbors while he, his family and friends went door to door singing Christmas Carols. One of his friends named Hoch, who became his business partner, mentioned on one of these gatherings in the early 80’s he wished he could find an all natural product like Newman’s on the store shelfs. From there the idea grew into a real business with a real mission. At the time mass produced salad dressings that were loaded with preservatives were the only options. It took about 3 years to come up with the correct combination of natural ingredients that would have a shelf life beyond a few months without using any preservatives. The task was daunting and as this was a passion project, they almost gave up on several occasions. Newman’s Own also needed to find a bottler and after an exhaustive search settled on Ken’s Steak House in Framingham, Massachusetts. Ken’s was a regional brand at the time and although popular in New England they did not have national distribution but the steak house brand was large enough to have a its own manufacturing plant.
The original Kens Steak House Restaurant is still up and running.
Before the first case was shipped, it was decided that all after tax profits would be donated to charity, a tradition that continues to this day. Newman’s own has added many other products including several salad dressing flavors, a variety of spaghetti sauces, Lemonade,Iced Tea, Popcorn and Salsas. Combined Worldwide sales are now in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The brand began opening up summer camps for kids with terminal illnesses and now boast a vast network of camps were they own the property and did the build out to meet these kids specific needs. Many cost several million dollars to construct. The camps have changed the life’s of so many children and about a 1/3 of the book is dedicated to their creation and operations.
Newman’s Own products contain a witty, mostly made up story of their creation written by Paul Newman himself. Many other pop culture icons, celebrities’ and movie stars have attempted to launch food products lines with their likeness and most if not all have failed. The reason is many times a label with their picture was added to an already existing product. After an initial sales splash, as we buy food with our eyes not with our mouths, most fell short of the quality found in Newman’s Own products and thus failed to attract repeat buyers.
I have always been a fan of Newman’s Own products and have bought them consistently over the past 30 years. This book gave an inside look into what went into making this company written by the late founder himself. It highlights the good the one person can do and how when you set your mind to something and keep at it, amazing outcomes will be the end result. Newman’s Own brand will be around for many years to come and it will be one of the products I will continue to support when I leave here. Four Stars.
