Reviews
Financial Post
September 2010
The Earth’s Best Story is a complicated tale of sweat, success, naivety, scheming and villainy, recounted by identical twin brothers who founded the first organic baby food company in the United States, only to have it scooped away from them.
The book is fascinating reading: a movie-like entrepreneurial dream realized through stubborn determination and perseverance that ends with a nearly Shakespearean denouement.
The brothers alternate the narrative, beginning with their shared idealism for making the world a better place by developing a nutritious, organic line of food that was safe and healthy for babies.
They are candid about how they started out with next to no skills or connections to draw on to bring their dream to fruition and how they made a series of mistakes that would have derailed nearly anyone else.
The book traces their awkward development into entrepreneurs, the struggle to develop a saleable product that met their ideals and the desperate, never-ending efforts to scrounge up financing. And, how, just when everything seemed poised to pay off for them, it fell apart.
The Kosses’ description of the way some of their investors, and subsequently some of the executives, schemed to oust the brothers from control of the company they created, is gut-wrenching and it’s obvious the wounds are still raw, more than 20 years after the events.
The Earth’s Best brand is now part of a stable of natural-foods controlled by The Hain Celestial Group and the brothers have moved on to other projects. Their memoir is both cautionary and inspirational.
Read the original review, “A Cautionary Tale of Idealism vs. Business,” by Laura Ramsey, here.
Shine
The Earth's Best Story
June 9, 2010
Ron and Arnie Koss founded Earth's Best Baby Food in 1985. In addition to baby food, Ron Koss is a natural foods product innovator. During his long-term employ with the AIO Food Group, Ron has secured patents for his work on complete meal supplement ice cream and has also introduced specialized complete meal supplements for people in health recovery situations. Presently, he is working on nutritional products for a global relief aid project. Ron enjoys working as a consultant for socially responsible enterprises and has a special interest in group dynamics, organizational development, and conflict resolution. Arnie Koss honed his business skills by founding and operating a number of small entrepreneurial companies in Vermont. He was actively involved in the development of organic certification standards, which eventually led to the Organic Foods Act of 1990. Arnie has served as a consultant to several prominent natural products companies and is presently the Managing Partner at aio Food Group, a Hawaii-based product development company that has created patented nutritional supplement products and also owns the Punalu'u Bakeshop and Visitor Center on the Big Island of Hawaii. The Earth's Best Story tells how Ron and Arnie Koss succeeded in creating the first nationally distributed organic foods company to sit next to its mainstream competition on supermarket shelves-a step that revolutionized and empowered the organic-foods movement as a whole-and benefited hundreds of farmers as well as the millions of babies whose very first foods have been organically grown, thanks to Earth's Best. www.theearthsbeststory.com
Can Baby Food Change The World?
A Review and Entrepreneurial Tips from The Earth's Best Story
By Gail Bradney
When twin brother entrepreneurs Ron and Arnie Koss set out to create the first organic baby food company, they planned on changing the world.
With little business experience, no money, and a big dream, they launched Earth’s Best Baby Food, which revolutionized and empowered the organic foods movement and benefited hundreds of farmers and millions of babies.
In The Earth’s Best Story: A Bittersweet Tale of Twin Brothers Who Sparked an Organic Revolution (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2010), the Koss brothers offer a lively and engaging look at how their unique bond as twins enabled them to overcome daunting business challenges on the way to creating the first nationally distributed organic food to sit next to its mainstream competitors on supermarket shelves.
Read the whole article here.
Baby food for thought: Ellenville brothers recount struggles building Earth’s Best
Daily Freeman
By Paula Ann Mitchell
Thursday, May 20, 2010
An investigative news report on “60 Minutes” was just what twin brothers Ron and Arnie Koss needed to get their organic baby food firmly established in the minds of the buying public.
The entrepreneurs from Ellenville had gone through a whole lot of cash and endured many sleepless nights as they struggled to build Earth’s Best Baby Food.
Their big break came with the “60 Minutes” broadcast. It had condemned the use of the plant-growth chemical Alar, claiming it posed a cancer risk.
The national TV audience learned that farmers had been spraying their apple crops with it. Those apples ended up in baby-food jars. Children were vulnerable.
While it was one big, gooey mess for industry giants like Gerber, Beech-Nut and Heinz, the future looked peachy for Earth’s Best.
Read the whole article here.
Brothers and Baby Food
NewsReview.com Sacramento
By Sena Christian
May 13, 2010
The Earth’s Best Story: A Bittersweet Tale of Twin Brothers Who Sparked an Organic Revolution tells the story of brothers Ron and Arnie Koss, who successfully created the first organic baby food sold in U.S. supermarkets and catalyzed an organic-foods movement in the process. And bittersweet is right: The brothers struggle through entrepreneurial mistakes, unforeseen (and expensive) processing-facility breakdowns and generating enough investor capital to sustain a project started by two unproven businessmen.
Read the whole article here.
Book Reviews: Three Books About Organic Food
Washington Post
By Suki Casanave
Special to The Washington Post
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Let's eat! No two words could be more universal or -- according to three new books -- more controversial. These authors have different stories to tell, different flags to wave, but they're all marching forward in agreement on one thing: The food we eat is in danger, and so is our environment. Readers who open these covers will hear the shouting on every page: It's time to take action! It's time, in short, for a food fight.
When twin brothers Ron and Arnie Koss launched their business in the mid-1980s, they found themselves on the front lines of a brand-new movement. Their weapon of choice? Baby food -- the first organic baby food in the United States. "Our goal was to make the world a better place," writes Ron Koss, "nothing less. This is how we would define 'success.' This was our bottom line." A rip-roaring entrepreneurial tale, The Story of Earth's Best (Chelsea Green; paperback, $19.95) is packed with drama, from exploding equipment and workers drenched in apple juice to relentless financial crises and complex boardroom battles. Who knew baby food would be such treacherous terrain? Writing in a sort of back-and-forth, journal-entry format that some may find too detailed and confessional, the Koss brothers offer a candid account of their start-up venture, from the moment of inspiration to the bittersweet end. Although the brothers wound up losing control of the company (and leaving even before it was sold to Heinz in 1996), their efforts helped forge a new organic path through the mainstream food wilderness, and that's a lasting victory.
Read the whole article here.
The Earth's Best Story By Ron & Arnie Koss - Book Review
Blog Business World
Wayne Hurlbert
Saturday, April 17, 2010
For me, the power of the book is how Arnie and Ron Koss share a fascinating and very reader friendly account of their entrepreneurial journey. The twins point out that the book is about how they built and operated the company, but they also point out how they made several serious missteps. Their open and frank discussion of their mistakes provides the reader with valuable lessons on which courses of action are best avoided. At the same time, the authors demonstrate how to maintain a working partnership that is able to overcome serious setbacks, and continues to operate effectively. They also provide powerful insights into how to run a family based company effectively and with a minimum of friction and dissension. Most of all, the book is a deeply personal one, told in alternative voices by each brother, from their own unique point of view. The personal nature of the book gives it a power that a more clinical analysis of the company would lack.
Read the whole article here.
Really Natural Books: The Earth's Best Story: A Bittersweet Tale of Twin Brothers Who Sparked an Organic Revolution
Serkadis
Jennifer Lance
April 14, 2010
Truly, these twin brothers are brilliant! Many people I know, including family members, only began their journey into organic food (which eventually leads to a greener lifestyle in general) when their first child was born. After feeding this pure little being the best food on earth (breastmilk) parents approach chemically-grown solid food with hesitation and trepidation. Earth’s Best, found in almost every grocery store in America, offers an affordable, organic option. Thanks to the Koss brothers, an organic revolution really did begin with the babies!
Read the whole article here.
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