Friday June 8, 2001
The Recorder, Business section, Greenfield, Mass.
Blue algae snacks nourish area venture; success expands family-run business
by Virginia Ray

BUCKLAND- Six years ago Michael Garfield-Wright and his family were thinking about snack food in a blue sort of mood – blue algae, that is.

Now the local entrepreneur has a thriving cottage business in the competitive natural foods world and those blue algae “Chunks of Energy” he developed have become a popular snack food in eight flavors.

While many companies these days are consolidating in the natural foods business, Garfield-Wright has been able to thrive as a cottage business.

“I’ve managed not only to survive, but have my sales doubles every six months or so,” he said.

“I’ve been able to pick out some niche business, to sell to maybe 10 percent of the customers in the store instead of 100 percent. The bigger stores may not want that, but it’s fine for me.”

He credits his survival in a sea of corporate giants to keeping it small and simple.

“I’ve kept m marketing costs down, and I’ve used my personal passion – sending out samples to one or two stores a week – and that’s basically how I get new customers,” said Garfield-Wright. “I couldn’t do it without feeling passionate about it. I usually get about a 35-40 percent response rate, which is incredibly high. I’m amazed.”

Six years ago, when the first carob/blue algae product was launched, Garfield-Wright saw sales of $47,000. Last year his sales reached $411,000 and this year he’s projecting a sales total of $750,000.

“Next year, it should be well over $1 million,” he said, amazement even in his voice.

And although he has distributed nationally now, his family is still involved.

“My daughter Leah, who’s now 14, came up with the name ‘Chunks of Energy.’” Garfield-Wright said. “I’ve always had my kids integrated into the business. Now Sylvia, my 9-year-old has come up with a name for our new vegetable snack bar, ‘Veggie Star.’”

That’s named partly for the family’s Dancing Star Farm in Buckland where it all started in the kitchen. Now the girls also attend food trade shows with their dad, explaining the product to interested buyers.

The products have also been test-marketed and are for sale at McCusker’s Market in Shelburne Falls, where his wife, Susan, is office manager.

Dancing Star’s real niche is in the realm of non-dairy and salt-and wheat-free snacks.

“These are all little niches that aren’t catered by larger companies,” said Garfield-Wright, who is currently honing his product even further. It now is wheat-based and has vanilla in it, and he’s working to change it to an oil- or water-based product that would cater to those who want gluten-free eats.

While that may sounds like a difficult challenge to really get excited about, all you have to do is talk to the energetic entrepreneur to see how it revs his personal engine. You won’t find anyone more excited about vegetables, 15 of which are ingredients in the Veggie Star bar.

“That makes it equal to one-half to one serving of vegetables,” he said.

Garfield-Wright uses his knowledge from five years in arbitrage work on Wall Street and nine years as purchasing manager for Bread & Circus to market strategically now.

You can tell that for him, selling is truly a passion.

“I’m going to be trying a new form of marketing to cut down the cost, selling it in the bulk bin of the natural food store,” he said. “The Greenfield’s Co-op is selling it for $10 per pound, wrapped in about half-ounce units. That means for $5, a person could buy 15 of these, costing about 30 cents per piece. That makes it a cheap snack, cheaper than a candy bar.”

Garfield-Wright is now in the process of forming what he calls “a strategic alliance” with a California entrepreneur who owns many natural food companies, which means he’ll have more distribution west of the Rocky Mountains.

“This is what’s happening in small business, it’s what you have to do today. I’m using his contacts and we’ll create one name for the bar,” he said.

Another joy for Garfield-Wright is getting e-mail from as far away as Amsterdam, in the Netherlands, about his product, including one from a Native American tribe in Arizona that wanted to buy Chunks of Energy.

“Their chief had bought some and e-mailed me saying they wanted to buy huge quantities because everyone in the tribe eats it,” he said.

Garfield-Wright also gets excited about sharing his good fortune with others, including teaching classes through the Mary Lyon Education Fund’s West County Classroom. He is a member of that board, and recently donations high-energy snack bars to the children involved in the annual spelling bee.

He’s also on the board of the Shelburne Falls Area Business Association, where’s he’s heading a non-retail committee.

“Mo job is to reach out to non-retail businesses and figure out what kind of support and services we can help them with, like marketing, developing Internet skills, social hours maybe to get together and network,” he said. “I take some of these ideas and bring them to them. I hope to be able to help the community a little, hoping every month I can send some money to something like the Friday Night Community Meal at Trinity Church and other efforts in the community.”

Having sold 175,000 energy bars last year, Garfield-Wright is hoping to expand his home operation to a new building with a loading dock, and to hire outside help for the first time for bookkeeping, shipping and marketing, growing his business to infuse the local hill town economy.

The snack food world has been good to Garfield-Wright and his family and he sees limitless possibilities.

“There’s plenty for people that still want to indulge, those who rebel saying they a good, rich candy bar or cup of coffee,” he said with a smile. “But there are other strong niches. I’ve been very lucky.”