Amy’s Kitchen: Big in convenience

Amy’s is one of the big independent family businesses in the classic organic industry in the USA. Quite apart from having an appealing background story as a self-made manufacturer of food, Amy’s Kitchen impacts by selling a wide-ranging variety of vegetarian organic convenience foods. The canned soups and frozen meals are available in practically every marketing channel in North America. And Amy’s is not restricted to the home country – you’ll find Amy’s on any number of markets abroad too. The company is currently establishing a production facility in England to make it easier to supply European markets. (Picture: Attractive product range: vegetarian ready meals, ethnic food, gluten-free and light cuisine)The story of Amy’s Kitchen began with the birth of Rachel and Andy Berliner’s daughter in 1987. They called her Amy. The young couple had some background in organics: Andy had been the president of the firm Magic Mountain Herb Tea, and Rachel had grown up with organic food and was working for a company as their art director. Naturally, when they cooked the first recipes in their own kitchen at home, they were not planning to become America’s biggest manufacturer of vegetarian ready meals. “Even though we produce soya only for our own use, we’re the biggest producer of organic soya in the USA, and we’re the biggest customer for organic ingredients,” explains Michelle Erbs during a tour of the company.
(Picture: In-house soya production)



(Pictures: Production and packaging of vegetarian burritos and burgers)

When Amy’s Kitchen products first came onto the market in the late 1980s, they were an instant success. The reasons were probably twofold: at that time the number of vegetarians and of people interested in healthy eating was rising dramatically; and in wholefood shops and supermarkets there was hardly anything available specifically for this customer category. This means that the founders of Amy’s Kitchen were in the right place at the right time with their easy-to-prepare and ready-to-eat products, which had the added bonus of tasting like home cooking. (Picture: A lot is still done by hand at Amy’s Kitchen: burritos are filled and rolled by hand)

Amy’s has grown into a company with a workforce of around 1,600 people and a product range of more than 170 items. They have production facilities at two locations in America, and there is soon to be one in England too. The main factory is in Santa Rosa in California, and the headquarters is in nearby Petaluma 40 km to the north of San Francisco. There is another factory in Medford/Oregon, where with ultra-modern equipment they produce 15 sorts of pizza. It’s in Santa Rosa that recipes are devised, the daily quality controls are carried out and a shift system is operated to produce soups, sauces, enchiladas, burritos/wraps, veggie burgers, lasagna, cakes and pies. In particular, one of the main ingredients of vegetarian dishes is produced on-site, namely tofu. “We make the tofu here ourselves, because we like to control the quality of our ingredients,” says Michelle Erbs. Anything we don’t produce ourselves is supplied by organic companies that Amy’s has worked with for a long time. The company prefers to use fresh vegetables from the region. (Pictures: The priority is quality. Products are tasted every day, and naturally samples of every ingredient are taken for testing)

The product range is growing year on year. About 95 % of the products are 100 % organic. 15 years ago, Amy’s started to make gluten-free ready meals, one of the reasons being that the founders’ daughter Amy is gluten intolerant, like about 7 % of Americans suffers from celiac disease. A light and lean diet line addresses the issue of obesity, that has become a big problem and is much discussed in the United States. The fact that Amy’s products offer people genuine solutions to their problems is evidenced by the approximately 4,000 emails the company receives every month in which customers from all over country express their gratitude for tasty fast food alternatives. As well as the classic vegetarian version of good home cooking, there are recipes from across the world – Mexican, Italian, Asian and Indian cuisine. (Pictures below: At the cutting edge: healthy convenience ready meals)












Erbs says that the Facebook community is also very active. Celiac sufferers exchange ideas and recommend products to each other – lively word-of-mouth advertising. And there is a separate website for children too. The media are very happy to promote Amy’s products, as you can see from a long list of video clips, press clippings, etc. (video on NBC’s Today show). Daughter Amy is now an adult and she makes her own contribution to the firm named after her: in Amy’s Journal, she reports on journeys she makes, the things she has done and her experiences. She is a third generation vegetarian. (Picture: Screen shot of children’s website “Lemonslice”)

For many years, the annual growth rate of Amy’s Kitchen was up to 30 %. As Michelle Erbs explains, the economic crisis has been a good opportunity for them to catch their breath and to consolidate. She is now anxiously waiting for the end-of-year results for 2010. Particularly interesting is the development of sales in England, where Amy’s has been listed by Sainsbury’s, Waitrose, Fresh & Wild, Planet Organic and Whole Foods Market and by owner-managed health food stores. Initial demand has been very good in Europe and, by opening production facilities there, Amy’s is creating a base from which to reach other European markets. Amy’s is already present in Thailand, Israel and the Arab countries as well as, of course, Canada. (Picture: Shift system to supply the retail trade)

The company uses all the distribution channels in the domestic market: from regional supermarket chains like Fred Meyers, TOP (NW), Publix (Florida) and the big national retailers Safeway, Target to Walmart. “Even though the retail food trade is registering very high turnover, we’re great advocates of the specialist wholefood trade,” says Michelle Erbs. Amy’s is one of the organic pioneers and one of the few companies that is still an independent family business. This helps to explain why they are committed to sustainability. The environmental protection measures include their own water recirculation system: “Everything is recycled, composted or goes for animal feed,” says Erbs. She adds that packaging is still a big challenge – in the future they want to focus more on biodegradable materials.
(Picture: In appearance nothing remarkable: Amy’s factory in Santa Rosa)

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(Picture: Meeting at the workplace)