Cultivating a Good Life…
and a Great Company

An interview with Nell Newman, Newman’s Own Organics

By Julie Larson Bricher


It’s been a little more than a decade since Nell Newman prepared the 100% organic Thanksgiving meal that launched a food company known as much for its great-tasting snack products as for its support of environmentally sustainable agriculture and philanthropic contributions. As Nell describes in her 2003 book, The Newman’s Own Organics Guide to a Good Life: Simple Measures that Benefit You and the Place You Live, authored with Joseph D’Agnese, wowing her “Pa”, actor Paul Newman at that holiday dinner was a first step in realizing her mission to establish an organic division of his highly successful food company, Newman’s Own. “To him, organic foods referred to the hippy-dippy dishes my mom [actor Joanne Woodward] experimented with in the sixties, like nut loaf with yeast gravy. He was due for a wake-up call,” she writes.

“My father expected a traditional Thanksgiving meal, and I was going to give him one. Sort of. One year, before leaving California to go home to Connecticut, I packed a bunch of organic foods from my local haunts. Petite pois. Sweet potatoes. Bread crumbs for stuffing. The whole bit, down to the turkey, packed in ice. I flew home with this cornucopia in my luggage and headed straight for the kitchen.” Following the meal, Nell could see that the meal “more than met with his approval.” He was stunned when told that the meal was entirely organic.

Nell and business partner Peter Meehan launched the organic division of Newman’s Own in 1993 with the motto, “Great products that happen to be organic.” Consumers readily agreed. In 2001, Newman’s Own Organics: The Second Generation went independent, a testament to the co-founders’ certainty that there was a market for organic snack foods.

Based in Aptos, CA, the company’s products— pretzels, chocolate bars, Fig Newmans™, Champion Chip cookies, Newman-O’s cookies, chocolate peanut butter cups, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, Pop’s Corn, and a new line of pet food—are all produced from certified organic ingredients and are packaged in a distinctive, eye-catching way, featuring an amusing photo of an American Gothic “Pa” Newman and daughter Nell plus a fanciful story. The company also has a cooperative venture with Green Mountain Coffee, Inc., which roasts and distributes six original blends of Newman’s Own Organics Fair Trade Certified coffees.

An ardent supporter of sustainable agriculture with a professional background in human ecology, the environment and wildlife conservation, Nell’s commitment to organic products goes beyond the typical food manufacturer. Paul Newman has donated $150 million to charities and educational groups of which more than $2 million is the result of the roylaties paid from the sale of Newman’s Own Organics’ products to Mr. Newman, who gives all of the royalties after taxes away.

Nell spent some time with Organic Processing Magazine to share her insights as a successful organic food manufacturer and an advocate for the growth of the organic industry.

OP: In your opinion, Nell, what are the most significant developments in the organic agriculture and processing industry during the last 10 years since you and Peter Meehan established Newman’s Own Organics, and why?

Newman: I would say that the most significant development has been the tremendous overall growth of organic products in every category. When we started Newman’s Own Organics, our market research showed that there was a lot of opportunity because there were many categories for which there were no organic alternatives. There were no organic dairy products, snack foods or processed foods. Today, every single category has something organic in it, from spices to beverages to pet foods.

The growth of the organic industry was really fueled when the public started to demand these products and manufacturers began to see it as an opportunity in the marketplace. People are more educated about what organic is and what the benefits of organic foods are, and that is continuing to fuel the demand. Consumers have been going to their local farmers markets and now they also want the convenience of organic frozen foods, or quick and easy meals they can take out of the icebox that are organic. They also want an organic cookie that tastes like a cookie, not the healthy whole wheat things that disguise themselves as cookies! So while food manufacturers are not going to find a category that is wide open in terms of organic, they will find that making high-quality products that satisfy their customers’ preferences for convenience and taste will help grow the organic product market further.

OP: Newman’s Own Organics has called for a moratorium on the use of GMOs in organic agriculture until more scientific study has been conducted on the technology’s safety. Can you elaborate for other organic manufacturers how this issue affects them, and what measures they might take to educate themselves further?

Newman: My biggest concern as a biologist is that you shouldn’t let something out of the laboratory that can grow out of control in the field. Whether it was an oversight on the part of the genetic engineering industry or not, this has been the real problem with GMOs. That is why I’ve called for a total moratorium because you can’t have the continued growth of genetically modified organisms and not have contamination. The law of averages doesn’t work that way. We have to put our foot down and use educational avenues and legal avenues to get this across.

First, we have to educate the public about why this is a concern. For example, it is now being reported that in many cases, when GMO seed crosses with weedy relatives, those weedy relatives are more able to pass on that genetic material and actually have increased survivability. This means that genetically modified organisms are more likely to spread. At least pesticides degrade over time but genetically engineered organisms do not.

For organic food processors, the GMO problem means that they have to ensure that their suppliers are doing the right things in terms of staggering plantings and testing throughout the growing season to make sure there is no cross-contamination, ensuring that there is a paper trail throughout the growing, harvesting and milling of that product to make sure there has been no adulteration from genetically engineered ingredients.

There are many good sources of information that organic processors can use to help educate themselves and their customers. I would highly recommend The Non-GMO Source Newsletter (www.non-gmosource.com), and organizations such as the Organic Farming Research Foundation (www.ofrf.org).

OP: Some of the challenges organic product companies face include sourcing ingredients and raw materials, finding appropriate packaging, and selecting a certification agency. Based on your experience, will you comment on these types of challenges and provide some insight about how companies might successfully address them?

Newman: I think that due to the growth of the organic industry in the past five years, it has become easier and easier to source ingredients and raw materials for organic production. There is so much more availability than there used to be in terms of unusual ingredients. For example, the organic palm shortening that we use in our cookies, probably couldn’t have been found as an organic ingredient 10 years ago. It is an incredible substitute for butter because it contains no cholesterol. On a related note, another challenge for organic processors is keeping our products reasonably priced when you are trying to use as many organic ingredients as possible. We co-pack our products, so as bigger companies that manufacture their own products come into this marketplace, the economics of including as many organic ingredients as possible becomes more difficult as competition gets tougher.

Packaging is a whole different story. In fact, packaging probably could use a little more evolution. Essentially, we use the best packaging to keep our product fresh but environmentally speaking, it is not the best. The last thing you want is for a consumer to buy a stale pretzel so you use the packaging available. However, I think the packaging industry could use a little kick in the pants about developing more environmentally safe packaging that also meets the shelf stable requirements.

With the National Organic Program standards in place, its not a matter of whether to get certified—you must be certified to manufacture and market your products as organic—its more of a matter of how to select a certifying agent. There are a lot of good certification agencies out there, and basically I think that you should select the company with which you can have the besting working relationship. Talk to other manufacturers and see what their experiences have been, talk to the recommended certifying agencies yourself and then see which you get along best with.

OP: What is the most valuable lesson you’ve learned in running a successful organic food manufacturing business?

Newman: Hard work, diligence and being both detail oriented and on the ball are really what makes for a successful organic food company. I don’t know that you can ever have enough of those qualities.


OP: What do you think will be the next big trend in the evolution of the organic industry?

Newman: Again, I think the next big trend is a continuation of this tremendous growth rate of organic. There really isn’t a food category that hasn’t been expanded to include organic products.

OP: As conventional companies establish organic product lines or purchase organic product companies, do you think that they can uphold the underlying precepts of the organic movement—environmental sustainability, energy conservation, social responsibility, fair trade—while producing and marketing organic products?

Newman: The purpose of a national organic standard is to make sure that everybody meets that standard. Maybe some of those companies will get it and maybe some won’t. The market growth is a blessing and curse for those who wanted the organic industry to stay small.

On the other hand, the real purpose of promoting environmentally sustainable organic agriculture is to encourage and spread the growth of the industry. You can’t have growth of sustainable agriculture without having a market for it.