Stonyfield Stirs Things Up

It began with two friends and seven cows. Today, Stonyfield Farm and its organic yogurt is the No. 3 yogurt brand in the U.S. Today's Sustainability column looks at the company and its CEO-Y, Gary Hirshberg.

Last month, I had the pleasure of visiting Gary at Stonyfield's headquarters in Londonderry, New Hampshire. He's a lifelong environmentalist - he once ran an ecological research center on Cape Cod called the New Alchemy Institute - and a big believer that that business can and must become more sustainable.

"In one of those ironic twists that make life so interesting, the same boundless thirst for profit that got the planet into trouble can also get us out of it," he writes his new book, called Stirring It Up: How to Make Money and Save the World.

Here's how the column begins:

LONDONDERRY, N.H. - Twenty-five years ago, on a visit to Disney's Epcot Center with his mother, a young environmental activist named Gary Hirshberg came across an exhibit on farming sponsored by Kraft. He was appalled by the display of chemical fertilizers and pesticides - "chemistry gone mad," he calls it - and vowed to find a way to produce food more sustainably.

Today, Hirshberg is president and "CE-Yo" of Stonyfield Farm, the world's largest manufacturer of organic yogurt. Now majority-owned by the French food giant Group Danone (GDNNY), Stonyfield generated about $300 million in revenues last year. Its yogurt is the No. 3 brand in the United States, behind Yoplait and Stonyfield's sister brand Dannon.

It's quite a growth story for a company that began in 1983 with the families of Hirshberg and his friend, Samuel Kaymen, milking seven cows on a farm in Wilton, New Hampshire. Hirshberg, who is now 53, says that Stonyfield has lots more growth ahead, as does the organic food business, which accounts for about 3 percent of the U.S. food industry sales.

You can read the rest here.