New Jersey Monthly

Worth it!

(continued)

Frookies now has 14 flavors of cookies, including oatmeal raisin, chocolate chip, ginger spice and apple cinnamon oat bran. Not that everything has been smooth with the company. During the company's phenomenal growth, Worth has gone through three company presidents whom he hired from "major-league corporations."

"I've got to tell you something: I was shocked at what they didn't know," Worth says. "They'd sign irrevocable letters of credit for cookie jars that really said if the Taiwanese brought over the jars and they were made of porcelain and were making an obscene gesture, we'd still have to pay for them. The money was released. There was no protection. They had no leadership, no follow-up."

They were, he says with scorn, used to the management-by-memo school of big
corporations instead of hands-on entrepreneurship.One of the ex-presidents, former Columbo yogurt head John Vinton, who quit after three months, told Forbes magazine: "This has been one of the most successful new consumer products introduced in the last five or 10 years. But Rich Worth is no fun to work for, and the magic that made him successful is a two-edge sword. He will have to hand over the reins, or lose control."

Worth dismisses the idea that he was unable to relinquish control, a common problem with many evolving start-ups. Worth is happy with his new president -- his cousin, Don Worth, who helped write Frookies' business plan and whose strength is what he "doesn't know" about the food industry, and what he's "willing to learn."

Rich Worth says he takes Nabisco and its new healthy cookie "very, very seriously." But he's not concerned because "we knew we'd wake them up. If Keebler does something, Nabisco slaps them back. If Frookies does something, Nabisco takes a shot. They have arrogance. And that arrogance, that sinful pride, will trip them up."

His biggest enemy, Worth says, continues to be the slotting fees. One supermarket, that already succeeds with Frookies, wants him to pay $10,000 to take on his new fresh-baked cookie. "This is wrong," says Worth. "This is going to destroy entrepreneurship in the supermarket trade and it's going to hurt the supermarkets too. And they won't know why."

But one thing's certain -- Richard Worth won't be afraid to tell them so.

 

For What It's Worth: The Mouth That Roared

 

People like to hear Rich Worth talk, which is a good thing, because he's got a lot to say. In demand on the lecture circuit, Worth debated a supermarket executive on Financial News Network and when trade journals write articles about supermarket practices, the most stinging quotes -- the ones printed in large, bold letters -- are likely to be Worth's.

And it's no wonder. Listen to a few stray comments from Richard Worth, the mouth that roared:

Bet his shareholder meetings are fun: "I'd say 50 percent of our stockholders who are also our distributors have been terrific. Twenty-five percent have been non-descript. And 25 percent have been pains in the butt. They say, 'We should have this territory exclusively.' Well, we never promised them a rose garden in terms of area."

How about a sequel to "Roger & Me?": "Guys like Roger Smith and General Electric let the Japanese take it away from us. He should be hung in effigy. That guy committed a crime, and so did General Electric, when they intentionally got out of the small consumer stuff."

Or how about "Lee & Me?": "How can Lee Iacocca claim he's committed to quality? Give us a break. Look at the Lexus, which is the most disgusting and dangerous animal I've ever seen. I mean, I want one, but I'm not going to buy it. I buy American."

And Worth suggested we call his banker for a comment: "You have to watch what banks you choose. If you have one bad account exec and he says he doesn't like what's going on and restricts your million-and-a-half line of credit down to one million, you're dead. What you'll start doing is paying your suppliers slower. And they'll put you on C.O.D. Then you're in a spiral. Not because you have a bad business, but because one of the links in the chain decided to get scared."

But does he wash the dishes?: "One of the wonderful things about physical labor, like cutting wood, is you start out the day and there isn't a pile. At the end of the day there is a pile and it's a direct reinforcement of what you've done. That's true in business -- you can build a bigger pile, a bigger customer base. But there's something about that wood pile that makes it all the more impressive."

Turn on a night light: "Before you open up a new business, you're terrified. And if you're not terrified, you probably won't even succeed. Because terror motivates. Excitement motivates, terror motivates, fear motivates, greed motivates."

Here's yet another company picnic he won't be invited to: "Frito Lay? They're animals! They're willing to pay $1,000 (in various fees) per store (their products are in). Take 36,000 stores without the moms and pops. How is one supposed to come up with an innovative potato chip or a cheese curl against that?"

Were his parents upset he didn't go into the family business? "Well, they knew I was slightly different anyway."

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