The Entrepreneur of Better Eating
Dana Ehrlich had his Aha! moment on the plains of Argentina during an exchange program in his second year at Tuck. Sipping wine and eating parrilla (barbecue) while watching cattle graze, he realized that not only did these roaming cows create a beautiful scene, they also produced fabulous meat. "It was then," Ehrlich says, "that my interests in food, the environment, and entrepreneurship all came together. It made perfect sense to me." Thus was born Verde Farms, importer and distributor of free-range organic beef from Argentina's neighbor, Uruguay.
Ehrlich started his pre-Tuck career in high tech, working first for Intel and then for Network Appliance. "I always knew I didn't want to stay in high tech," he says. "I knew there was a more creative path for me."
That path has had a steep but exciting learning curve. "I had no experience with the meat industry and no experience starting a business," Ehrlich says, "but I learned early that part of the game is knowing how to manage risk." First stop on the learning curve was making contacts and building relationships. He reached beef producers through a U.S. importer. Meeting Uruguayan Pablo Garbarino T'04 was a bit of serendipity that has resulted in Verde Farms' being represented in-country. On the U.S. end, Ehrlich worked to find customs and sales brokers, factories to repackage the beef, and a distribution system.
The process starts with cattle grazing on chemical-free pastures at co-ops and family-owned farms. Feedlots, grain, antibiotics, and growth hormones are not part of the picture. After butchering and vacuum packing, the meat travels to the U.S., at first by air and now by ocean as sales have increased. Two processors, in Vermont and New Jersey, pick up the meat, give it a final trim, place it in portion-controlled packaging, and then ship it to Verde Farms' customers. The entire delivery chain is refrigerated. Verde Farms reaches its customers nationally through SYSCO Corporation and regionally through local distributors. While the first customers were upscale restaurants, caterers, and medical facilities that wanted an organic alternative, the company has recently launched sales to Wegmans Food Markets, a chain of high-end stores on the East Coast.
Now it's time to grow. "We are ready to scale up the business," says Ehrlich, "which means getting into more supermarkets and specialty stores; adding lines, such as organic jerky; and finding investors." Up to this point, the investment has all been Ehrlich's, but "we're about to close a deal with a group of angel investors," he says.
A long-term challenge comes from the meat industry itself. While consumers are turning to organic, grass-fed beef for flavor, health, and the environment, Ehrlich says that "meat buyers are old-fashioned guys who aren't interested in organic. For them, the more fat the better." Another challenge is sourcing: can organic beef be found in the U.S.? "I sought out beef cattle in Vermont," says Ehrlich, "but there just aren't many around. In Uruguay, I have more than 450 farms available to me." His philosophy is that by creating demand for pasture-based meat, Verde Farms will help shift demand back to local farmers, wherever they exist, as an alternative to the corporate giants who dominate the industry.
For the time being, Verde Farms prospers. And Dana Ehrlich has learned the double-edged lesson of entrepreneurship: "No one tells you what to do!"
