beyond organic
MERGING ORGANIC PRODUCTS AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
Botanical cooperative in Iowa grows from two founders to 15,000 members and annual sales of $40 million, supporting social causes, organic practices and endangered plants along the way.
Sarah Eykyn

LAST MAY, the inhabitants of a remote coffee-growing region in Peru flicked a switch and connected with the 21st century. For the 1,000 villagers of Tamborapa Pueblo in the Tabaconas Valley, the introduction of electric power was nothing short of revolutionary. For Frontier Natural Products Co-op, the company that initiated the Tamborapa Pueblo Hydroelectric Project, it was a textbook example of how the vision of sustainable enterprise can improve lives around the world.

“This has been an incredible opportunity for us to create a sustainable connection between our growers and our customers,” says Frontier’s founder, Rick Stewart, who attended the inaugural ceremonies and visited the simple homes that can now have light and refrigeration. “By donating a percentage of our revenue, we have enabled the customers who drink our coffee to help the villagers who grow our coffee. There is a beautiful symmetry to that.”

COMPLETING A FULL CIRCLE

There is also a sense in Stewart’s words that the company has completed a full circle that is true to its humble beginnings. Now a cooperative with 15,000 members and annual sales of $40 million, Frontier began in 1976 as a two-person, $250 operation in a basic cabin near the Cedar River in Palo, Iowa. By 1977, sales had grown to $18,000, and by 1983, Frontier was number 78 on the Inc. Magazine list of the 500 fastest growing companies. After outgrowing three locations in six years, Frontier purchased a 60-acre farm in Norway, Iowa, and has over 140,000 square feet of warehouse and office space in three locations. Stewart, who charted the course as CEO for two decades, remains as a consultant to the company, which markets a full line of natural and organic products. Organics are currently 44 percent of Frontier’s branded sales.

During its second year of business, Frontier became the only cooperatively owned national botanical company in the United States. The members of its early management team, several of whom still work at the company, envisioned a work place that employees would enjoy. Their goal to put families first — and an on-site “State of the Heart” child care facility — earned the business Working Mother Magazine awards in 1993, 1994 and 1995. Frontier now employs over 300 people. The co-op members, who also are the company’s customers, include buying clubs, retailers, distributors, restaurants and manufacturers.

ORGANIC RESEARCH FARM

The Frontier Organic Research Farm at company headquarters in Iowa promotes organic, sustainable agriculture and herbal education. In addition to conducting scientific research trials that study sustainable techniques for growing organic, high-quality botanicals, Frontier holds educational events for the general public and growers. A long-term program of outreach to growers interested in cultivating herbs was launched with the first annual Organic Herb Grower Day in 1999.

Another educational event is Frontier’s HerbFest. Now in its ninth year, it draws together authors, herbalists, interested beginners and experts for a three-day herbal jamboree. HerbFest includes farm tours, herb walks, seminars, entertainment, and specialized children’s activities. “We’re eager to encourage growers to learn how to cultivate medicinal herbs and to teach consumers how important it is to protect our wild supplies,” says event organizer Heather McNeill. “When so many of our plants are threatened with extinction in the wild, that kind of education can make all the difference in the future.”

In addition to the 15-acre native prairie at the Frontier Organic Research Farm, Frontier encourages research and cultivation of “at risk” medicinal herbs at the National Center for the Preservation of Medicinal Herbs. The center — a 68-acre haven for herbs in Meigs County, Ohio — was founded by Frontier in 1998 to protect the supplies of wild medicinal herbs dwindling because of increasing demand and decreasing habitat. Through research on cultivation methods and grower outreach, Frontier’s Save the Goldenseal project has generated enough cultivated goldenseal so that the company no longer relies on wildcrafted supplies for its products.

The findings of studies at the center, including the one on goldenseal, are shared with growers to help establish sufficient commercial production to protect wild supplies. An added bonus is that organic cultivation of herbs often improves economic conditions in low-income, forested areas where traditional agriculture is difficult.

SUPPORTING SOCIAL CAUSES

Frontier employs Steve Phillips as a manager to oversee support for social and environmental causes. “We’re in the business of sourcing and producing the highest quality coffee, spices, herbs, essential oils and natural remedies from around the world,” he says. “In doing this, we believe that we have a responsibility to preserve and protect the environment and the communities that we are involved with, at home and abroad.” Domestic projects include Earth Day awards, recycling efforts, and sponsorship of the American Community Gardening Association.

Abroad, when Hurricane Mitch struck Nicaragua with such ferocity in 1998, Frontier initiated an industry-wide campaign that raised $26,000 for the victims. In 1999, the company directed funds from the natural products industry to the American Red Cross to assist survivors of the earthquake in Turkey. It made a $5,000 donation and earmarked a percentage of its sales of Turkish spices for the cause.

In addition to creating a market for locally grown coffee and paying a fair price for it, Frontier sends $30,000 to the communities of coffee-growing cooperatives in the Tabaconas Valley in Peru each year to fund the Institute for Sustainable Agriculture in the Tropics (SIAT). Frontier helped establish SIAT, a nongovernmental organization that offers technical assistance to coffee farmers and an alternative market for the sale of their product. SIAT provides training in organic certification and methods of improving quality and yield.

Other Frontier-supported projects have included reforestation efforts, a new processing plant, a bridge to allow motorized transport and classes in agriculture at the village school. Peruvian coffee growers and their families are gaining the knowledge needed to develop the sustainable agriculture and diversified income sources essential for their independence.

Frontier Coffee also contributes a percentage of sales to a Guatemalan orphanage for handicapped children, and helps fund a village bank for women in Jalapa, Mexico, through the Coffee Kids organization. The bank provides low-interest credit to help local women start business enterprises. “We are very much involved with these communities,” says Phillips. “We feel their loss and their needs and their hopes, because they are people we work with.”

After five years of hard work by village residents and a Frontier donation of $50,000, the people of the Tabaconas Valley and the Peruvian government completed the $150,000 Tamborapa Pueblo Hydroelectric Project. Frontier’s contribution came from 25 cents/lb from eight organic coffees sold during the period. Bob Fan, Frontier’s coffee manager, attended the inaugural ceremony in Peru last May with Stewart. “It’s so easy for people in the U.S. to take for granted simple things like reading a book at night or keeping food from spoiling,” says Fan. “We’re not trying to impose our values on the people of the Tamborapa, but we can give them the chance to make their own choices to improve their quality of life with something as simple as electricity.”

Adds Helgar Zelada, field director with SIAT: “This village now has the opportunity to offer better services in health, education and commerce, which all contribute to sustainability in the Tabaconas Basin.” From a modest cabin in Iowa in 1976 to a modest village in Peru in 2000, Frontier has shown the value of social responsibility and given others the opportunity to practice sustainable enterprise for themselves. And it has managed a thriving business along the way.