New Jersey Monthly

Worth it!

By Joe Mullich

 

Richard Worth was about to address the members of the American Marketing Association and per usual, the president of R.W. Frookies Inc. had a lot to say.

But even Worth -- a consummate entrepreneur who launched two successful companies -- felt "out-volumed" when he saw that the other speakers at the AMA were the people who'd introduced Gillette's latest razor and AT&T's revolutionary new calling card. So he stood up and, in a booming voice that just hinted at his Boston birthplace, said: "You asked me to answer the question of how the little guy can compete with the big guy. Well, I just want
to show you," says Worth. "At 3 o'clock today, the Wall Street Journal will announce the acquisition of the Gillette Corp. and AT&T by R.W. Frookies."

Worth slowly pointed at his two fellow speakers whose mouths were so wide by now that a dentist would have trouble wiring them shut. "And you guys," he said, "may get to keep your jobs."

In reality, Worth's upstart Englewood Cliffs-based company, producer of the first "healthy" cookie sold in supermarkets nationwide, would be little more than a tasty morsel for Gillette or AT&T.

But like everything else he does, Worth's wackiness had shock value. The same way he shocks the food industry by deriding as "piracy" common practices that he says stack the deck against the little guys -- like his company. The same way he used unusual financing and marketing tactics to start Frookies with $500,000 -- a fraction of what prevailing wisdom said he needed.

In 1989, Inc. magazine wrote an article about Frookies and a panel of experts chimed in with advice for the start-up: Frookies was a terrible name. An entrepreneur can't fight the big guys. Quit spinning your wheels. Change Frookies' slogan -- "the good for you cookie." At best, plan on letting the company grow to, say, $5 million in revenues and selling out to someone who can market.

Predictably, Worth ignored the advice, and R.W. Frookies reached its fifth-year sales projection of $17 million in its very first year of business.

And now, Worth will have the opportunity to show what he can do against the big guys at the checkout line. Massive Nabisco Biscuit Co., which sells one out of every three cookies in the U.S., is attacking Worth's niche by introducing a healthy cookie called "My Goodness!"

While even Worth's admirers wonder just how Frookies will compete against Nabisco's marketing strength, this unconventional CEO can hardly conceal his contempt. "The major-league enemy is not Nabisco; they'll screw themselves up," Worth says. "They're kind of dumb to unfocus their energy from Oreos. But I'll tell you what: if they want to trade Oreos for Frookies, I might do a deal with them."

But Nabisco isn't the only difficulty Frookies is encountering on the health front. According to a recent report in the Consumer Reports Health Letter, "the undoubtedly small amount of vitamins and minerals in the fruit juice that a Frookies cookie contains couldn't possibly have any nutritional value."

Worth dismisses the report with the kinds of words that can't be printed in a family magazine. If they truly believe it, he says, "instead of orange juice, they should give their kid a sugar solution -- it's cheaper."

Ever on the offensive, Worth says he is contacting the last 50 companies the newsletter has written about in hopes of launching a class-action suit. He's also focused some outrage on a New York television reporter who picked up the story. "I was prepared to dump sugar and fruit juice at her door, but all my sane advisors said no."(continued)

 

1 2 3 4 5

Back to non-medical writing samples