How the Wacky Apple Company Got It’s Start
The Wacky Apple Company is a true family company! My dad has been an organic apple farmer for as long as I can remember. I grew up playing in orchards and eating fresh organic fruit off the trees until my stomach hurt. I was one of the unique children where my parents had a harder time getting me to eat my “meat and potatoes” than they did getting me to eat my fruits and vegetables.
As I grew up my family built a successful fruit processing business. They successfully created an organic applesauce line of products that are sold across the county. We were always a true family business but as I grew up we became even more of a family business.
My dad is still the owner, founder, president, apple connoisseur, crazy farmer and mostly… the boss. My brother runs the factory and the orchards. He builds things and keeps it running… Something I am VERY INCAPABLE of doing… I have no idea how to successful weld a conveyor belt, or tweak the cup machine to work faster and more efficiently! It’s a good thing we have him…. I am in charge of the marketing and sales. We have the most amazing Vice President, Deborah. She is in charge of the factory, the production, the design, the shipping, well… to be honest, she pretty much over sees everything all with a smile on her face! We have a wonderful team of people who keep the company running and performing at its best! People we could not do without and who we consider, FAMILY!
The idea for the “The Wacky Apple Company” began one day with an after school discussion at the kitchen table between my dad, his girlfriend Susan, and her daughter Chloe who, was 8 at the time. They were frustrated about how bad the school-provided food was. Chloe showed them her after school snack which consisted mostly of high fructose corn syrup and food coloring. Chloe, who didn’t even want to eat it, commented, “you can make something better than this!” Susan replied with something along the lines of, “You’ve got to do something about this terrible food that they’re serving in school. They serve the kids food packed full of sugar and then they wonder why they can’t sit still and focus on their work. You are in the perfect situation to help kids eat better!”
This was the “light bulb” moment for Edward and our family. We ARE in the perfect position to a make a difference! As so began the journey of creating a product that was delicious, healthy, and fun!!!
After a long family weekend on the couch, looking through books, magazines, the internet, anything that would inspire us, we came up with the name Wacky Apple! From the name, came the products, and the characters and POOF, out of the blue we had a new company!
Three years later…. Numerous late nights, countless hours of product development, lots of knocking on doors, a few cold calls, and I am sure a few days of manufacturing difficulties, but we had a product! Most importantly we had a successful product! We successfully got our product into the school districts across Colorado and into the hands of the children! We received rave reviews on the quality of the products. The products are sweet! They are fresh! They are local! They are sustainable! They are Organic! And mostly they are awesome…. and kids and adults alike LOVE them!
~ Sarah
