09/ 27/ 2005
by Pat Hunn
Some people are born with a silver spoon in their mouths. I was born with a pickle in mine. My father started the successful Wiejske Wyroby brand of pickles when I was a child. Though I grew up in the business, I never expected to make it my life’s work. But before long I was putting my business degree to work for the family business, shadowing my father and learning firsthand how to run the business. When my dad had had enough of the pickle business, we decided to accept a buyout offer from the Campbell Soup Company. I stayed on board as part of the deal, but little did I know how hard it would be to make the switch from entrepreneur to corporate executive.
At the time, Campbell’s was buying up small independents in order to make its Vlasic pickle brand the top of the heap. As part of the deal with Campbell’s, I stayed on as a representative for all food products sold to Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club.
I spent eight years with the corporation, working two years past my original contract and non-compete agreement. But, to my surprise, I began to miss my entrepreneurial days. As a member of the corporate world, I didn’t have control over the product or any say in its development. I missed testing new samples and watching customers react to the products.
I decided it was now or never if I wanted to launch my own pickle label. After all, I’d spent 20 years in the pickle business and knew a quality product when I tasted it. I saw a niche in the market for home-style gourmet pickles. I knew I’d have to start small, and my initial focus was to create a product of exceptional quality and to offer something different for customers. If we were successful, we could offer the big guys a little competition.
In February 2002, I launched Hunn’s Private Stock gourmet pickles and relish products. I based my business on the concept of selling the best pickles in the country and focused solely on perfecting the product.
Certainly my experience with Campbell’s honed my business sense, but when it came to starting my own company, I realized that my dad had it right the first time around when he told me to focus on the customer and the product--not just the profit. As a business owner I wanted to be hands-on from beginning to end, not just a company figurehead. Even today, more than three years later, I am solely responsible for placing the products in stores.
In the beginning I passed out jars of pickles to everyone I met--at town meetings, high school football games, pretty much wherever I could find a potential customer. Slowly the samples and phone calls to distributors paid off as Hunn’s Private Stock found placement in national chains such as Wal-Mart, Costco and Central Market.
I never expected to spend most of my life in this business, and restarting from the ground up was difficult. But reclaiming the family business and creating products customers now seek out was well worth the challenge.
