Success Story: Jim Goldberg, CEO of Deep River Snacks

by Gina Scarpa

Deep River Snacks are packaged  in a way that is immediately recognizable to its customers.  The Connecticut based company, though, is about more than just brightly colored bags and tasty chips.  Not only do they aim to provide a healthier alternative to their competitors on the market, they are heavily involved with many charitable organizations.  Their commitment to improving the lives of others has resonated with consumers and consequently, Inc Magazine has named them one of the fastest growing companies in the county.

I spent some time chatting with CEO Jim Goldberg to gain an insight into the values at Deep River Snacks, and how they’ve managed to hold onto them as they grow.

You grew up in the food business.  Did you always have a plan to form your own food company?
As you said, I grew up in the food business and worked for big food companies.  I decided the corporate world was not for me.  I was lucky enough to earn a scholarship to go to University of South Carolina’s law school.  I had no intention to practice law, it was for business.  I came across a popcorn company that had gone bankrupt, I tried to buy them, and we couldn’t agree on a deal.  I never intended to be back in the food business.  It just happened that way.

You strike me as a very hands on company owner, someone who not only keeps his team small, but is very involved with the day-to-day operations of the business.   Why is that so important to you?
First off, the reason why I felt like I didn’t fit into corporate America… I felt like it didn’t feel right for me.  Staying hands on, I’m involved with almost everything but as it grows, you have to become a bigger, corporate structure.  It was the corporate structure that was the problem!  No one works for me here, we work together.  I want people to feel like they’re extended family.  We say “we give a chip” and I mean that.  We care that we source everything domestically, we care to work with these charities, I care that my coworkers look at this as the best job they’ve ever had.  It’s making sure the culture of the company stays the same.  We have to make sure we never lose that insight.  People work long and hard hours, they have to feel like this is part of their home.  I’ve laughed and cried with almost every employee I have.  I love them and I want them to feel that!

I was just about to bring up the charities.  The company is involved with several and you even promote them on your site and bags of chips.  Can you talk a little bit about those close relationships that you’ve formed and why they’re such a key part of your business?
It started off with a conversation with my father at Harry’s hamburger stand in Colchester.  My dad is a big time, successful businessman.  I was saying that you can build a business that has a heart and he was saying that businesses are about making money.  That was when the seed was planted.  I always like to prove my father wrong.  I was talking to my first employee, who’s still with me, and she told me her friend passed away and that was the initial step.  We’re now one of the largest donors to the Terri Brodeur Breast Cancer Foundation.  My middle son was diagnosed with a life threatening liver ailment.  That’s where I really started kicking things into high gear.  We can’t donate to every single charity, we’ll go belly up.  But we can donate some money to some charities and rotate it around.  We can donate products to charities, we can raise awareness of what they’re doing through our activities.  As an example, we have a charity we work with called the Chris Klug Foundation, who is the only person to ever medal in the Olympics after an organ transplant.  He has the same disease my son has.  He has an organization where he tries to get people to sign up to be organ donors.  This all kind of happened in a short time period where my life was affected because of my son's health.  Kim had brought up Terri Brodeur, my first sales guy, who is still with me, is a leukemia survivor… all of a sudden, people who we have personal, deep conversations with were going through something very real.  That’s where those expressions like “we give a chip” or “more than a bag of chips” come from.  We can’t just be about a bag of chips.

The company is very involved in social media (using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Pinterest).  That medium has certainly evolved over the years since Deep River Snacks was first formed.  How do you use it to market your company and products?
What’s interesting is that on social media, our initiative is not to interact with customers.  We want to interact with the members of the charities we work with.  For example, Autism Speaks is someone that’s very close to our hearts.  We want to talk to the moms and dads and siblings of people involved with Autism Speaks.  Our social media is not trying to get Facebook likes or followers.  We’re more focused on saying we’d rather talk to that mom who has an autistic son or child.

You’re a person of strong values and convictions, which is awesome.  Has it been difficult to maintain those things, though, as you grow?
It’s not easy.  We’ve certainly had opportunities to go with certain types of retailers that would make our company four times the size.  There’s an article from a long time ago where I was misquoted, that I said I’ll never sell my product to Walmart or Stop &  Shop.  We do sell in Stop & Shop now.  As far as picking and choosing… we had a very large hardware chain.  They wanted to buy our product to sell.  It wasn’t the right fit but it would’ve been 50% of what I sold for the entire year in one order.  I gotta make money but it was the wrong thing to do because it’s not what we’re all about. As it gets bigger, is it harder?  Yeah, but the more people who are aware of what we’re doing, it’s actually opened up more doors for us.  We have retailers that want to carry our product not only because the quality is better but they understand our message and they get it.  For example, we do a lot of business at the airport.  We have one particular airport operator that was very big.  They used to carry a competing product and they replaced it with ours.  They sell twice as much Deep River Snacks than the other brand.  The brand has resonated and we get emails all the time from people saying, “I love your product, I turned over the bag and I saw PSC and my husband has it.  I can’t believe we're in the airport and we turn the bag over and look what’s there.  Thank you, having you highlight that is so important to us.”  Those are the things that are valuable to us.

If you could pinpoint one key factor in the success of Deep River Snacks, what would it be?
Persistence!  We just work harder and harder every day.  All jokes aside, it’s a hard answer to give.  It’s the quality, it’s the packaging, it’s the messaging.  I think it all comes down to persistence.  We work so hard and we treat each coworker and customer… we don’t wanna be a vendor of someone.  We wanna be a partner.  If we’re a vendor, we’re no value to them.  A vendor is my phone company.  I pick up my phone and my phone works.  A partner is my phone line is down and they’re there at 2am so I can get calls.  That’s a partner.  I hope we never forget that the customer doesn’t need us.  We need them and we have to treat them in a manner that’s respectful and appreciative.  I think as brands get bigger, you become another number.  I don’t wanna be another number and I don’t want anyone else to feel that way.

Do you have a favorite chip to snack on?
You're gonna think I’m crazy but I love the Reduced Fat!  It takes me a long time to get seasonings.  My nacho seasoning took me 5 ½ years.  It’s an art, not a science.  It’s never 100% dead on.  When you’re cooking kettle chips, you’ll taste differences and it drives me absolutely insane!  My wife won’t ask me to pick up a pizza, not because I don’t want to do it but because they carry our chips.  If it’s not probably serviced or the colors aren’t right, I go crazy over it!  While I eat all of our chips, I would tell you I tend to eat the Reduced Fat.

I’ll tell you my favorite - it’s Rosemary and Olive Oil.  I could eat those every day...
That’s the only seasoning that took me one recipe!

To learn more about Deep River Snacks, visit their website and follow them on Twitter!

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