SANDPOINT \u2013 Thirty-eight years ago, the Hawkins family of Hope, Idaho, blended salad dressing in the back of their struggling restaurant and sold it to area grocers, generating $100,000 in annual\u00a0volume.<\/p>\n
Last year\u2019s volume was $3 million \u2026 per\u00a0week.<\/p>\n
Ed Hawkins Sr. deserves credit for creating Litehouse Foods\u2019 signature chunky bleu cheese dressing. But it was his sons, Ed Jr. and Doug Hawkins, who turned the brand into a household\u00a0name.<\/p>\n
Doug Hawkins was Litehouse president from 1984 to 2008, and now is chairman of the board. Ed Hawkins Jr. served as chief executive officer from 1989 until 2010, when he stepped aside to become \u201cKeeper of\u00a0Values.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jim Frank joined the company as director of sales in 2006 and was appointed CEO in\u00a02010.<\/p>\n
Ed Hawkins Jr. and Frank discussed the company\u2019s rise, its values and its prospects during a recent interview at the company\u2019s\u00a0headquarters.<\/p>\n
S-R: <\/strong>Ed, recount how your family got into the dressing\u00a0business.<\/p>\n Hawkins: <\/strong>Back in 1963, we were struggling financially. We had a restaurant on Lake Pend Oreille that was busy in the summer but so slow in winter that we generally closed January and February. Plus we had one kid in college and one soon to be. Dad and my brother, Doug, decided to figure out a way to make some more money. Restaurant customers liked our bleu cheese dressing. So Doug and Dad got some jars, had some labels made, bought ingredients at a local grocery store and made a few cases to sell to grocers. They\u2019d sell it by the case, the half case, whatever. In those days, there were lots of independent grocers who could make the decision right there in the store to buy something. The chains don\u2019t allow that to happen\u00a0anymore.<\/p>\n S-R:<\/strong> What inspired your dad\u2019s\u00a0recipe?<\/p>\n Hawkins:<\/strong> Prayer. The owner of a Spokane restaurant where Dad had worked wondered why someone couldn\u2019t make a good bleu cheese dressing. Dad prayed about it and woke up in the middle of the night with this new recipe. Instead of oil and vinegar, he used buttermilk, mayonnaise, garlic salt, salt and bleu cheese \u2013 that\u2019s it. It was a great recipe, because the cost of ingredients was\u00a0low.<\/p>\n S-R:<\/strong> What happened\u00a0next?<\/p>\n Hawkins:<\/strong> By 1968, we probably did $100,000 in volume, and in \u201974 we did the same \u2013 we\u2019d maxed out the Spokane market. I\u2019d just graduated from college and Dad was in the VA hospital in Spokane. His priority had always been the restaurant, so Doug and I decided to make the dressing our\u00a0priority.<\/p>\n S-R:<\/strong> What made you believe in it so\u00a0strongly?<\/p>\n Hawkins:<\/strong> I\u2019d had a goal, a vision, a dream \u2013 whatever you want to call it \u2013 that the business would take off, from the time it started when I was 10 years old. I loved making the stuff. I\u2019m the only one in this company who has done every job there is, from cleaning toilets to making the dressing and selling it, doing the books and then leading it as CEO for 25\u00a0years.<\/p>\n S-R:<\/strong> What was the company\u2019s first big\u00a0break?<\/p>\n Hawkins:<\/strong> Early in 1975, Doug and Dad called the head of the produce division for Albertsons in Boise. He\u2019d gotten mad at our competitor, kicked them out and brought us in. That was huge. In one year, we went from $100,000 in volume to about $250,000. Then the next year, he encouraged his counterpart in Salt Lake to bring us in. That put us up to\u00a0$750,000.<\/p>\n Frank:<\/strong> Getting into a chain was the big thing, versus single stores placing\u00a0orders.<\/p>\n Hawkins:<\/strong> The next big break was getting into Safeway in \u201977 \u2013 that meant a minimum 1,000 cases a\u00a0week.<\/p>\n S-R:<\/strong> Once you landed the Albertsons and Safeway accounts, were there any tough times after\u00a0that?<\/p>\n Hawkins:<\/strong> Oh, yeah. There still are tough times. We peaked in 1984 at about $6 million, and then we didn\u2019t grow for six years. It was a function of focusing on retail dressings \u2013 the stuff you see in the produce department. So we made a decision in 1989 to get into the food-service and member-store business. We went out on a limb and got a pillow machine (which makes single-serving packages), set a $20 million goal, and hit it in five\u00a0years.<\/p>\n Frank:<\/strong> Some of the tough times were when sales would stagnate. Other times, the profit side wasn\u2019t so good. We just came through a tough time in 2010-11 because sales grew so fast \u2013 runaway, almost \u2013 that it was difficult to get our arms around the profit\u00a0side.<\/p>\n S-R:<\/strong> Did the recession affect\u00a0business?<\/p>\n Hawkins:<\/strong> Historically, some of our best sales growth has occurred during recessionary periods. In the old days, when we were just retail, recessions were a great opportunity for us, because instead of going out to dinner, people stayed home and ate good\u00a0stuff.<\/p>\n S-R:<\/strong> Has anyone tried to buy the\u00a0company?<\/p>\n Hawkins:<\/strong> Every day of the week.\u00a0Still.<\/p>\n S-R:<\/strong> Why did you resist\u00a0that?<\/p>\n Hawkins:<\/strong> It goes back to our values and principles. Doug and I have always said we could sell this company or go broke, and, either way, the impact on jobs in this community would be the same \u2013 they\u2019d go away. Whomever we sold to would most likely have production facilities elsewhere. Going all the way back to 1972, one of my family\u2019s goals was to create good, steady, year-round jobs in\u00a0Sandpoint.<\/p>\n Frank:<\/strong> For 100 years, North Idaho has been a difficult place to make a living, because it\u2019s\u00a0seasonal.<\/p>\n S-R:<\/strong> How much do your employees\u00a0make?<\/p>\n Frank:<\/strong> Entry level is 50 cents to $1 higher than anything\u00a0comparable.<\/p>\n S-R:<\/strong> Do people tend to stay\u00a0here?<\/p>\n Hawkins:<\/strong> We had four people retire in January \u2013 one at 31 years, one at 30 years, one at 24 and one at\u00a022.<\/p>\n S-R:<\/strong> Jim, when you joined Litehouse in 2006 as director of sales, this was a family-dominated company. What was that\u00a0like?<\/p>\n Frank:<\/strong> Some people might not have been able to handle it, but for me it was like coming home. I went to work at the age of 10 in my dad\u2019s grocery store, and when I was 20-something I went to Albertsons, which back in the day had a family\u00a0atmosphere.<\/p>\n S-R:<\/strong> Ed, what brought about your brother\u2019s and your decision in 2006 to sell the company to the\u00a0employees?<\/p>\n Hawkins:<\/strong> It fit with our values. We now have three communities we\u2019re responsible to \u2013 we went into Michigan in 1997, and have been in Utah for almost a year. We felt if we sold it to our employees, then those plants are going to stay in those communities and continue to provide good\u00a0jobs.<\/p>\n S-R:<\/strong> What are the implications for\u00a0employees?<\/p>\n Frank:<\/strong> It\u2019s really a great pension plan. Each year, the company buys stock from the founding owners and gives it to all employees \u2013 the equivalent of about 10 percent of their salary \u2013 for free. And if we\u2019re doing the right things for the company, the value of the shares they already own go\u00a0up.<\/p>\n S-R:<\/strong> Ed, since stepping aside as CEO, you\u2019ve taken on the unofficial title of Keeper of Values. What are those\u00a0values?<\/p>\n Hawkins:<\/strong> They\u2019re on our Guiding Principles cards: faith, stewardship, integrity, commitment to excellence and accountability. It goes back to how we got here. My family was broke most of my life, up to \u201974 and \u201975. Faith and perseverance gave us the drive to continue when we should have quit. One of the things at the core of our company and our family was to create jobs for our community. If this company is to succeed and go forward, we have to adhere to these guiding\u00a0principles.<\/p>\n S-R:<\/strong> What\u2019s the biggest challenge the company\u00a0faces?<\/p>\n Frank: <\/strong>It\u2019s the unpredictable costs of ingredients. You hear about the biofuel industry using corn to make fuel, sending prices up. Our oils follow that rise. The other challenge is preserving the company\u2019s traditional values as it goes from being small and family-run to being big, and making the changes necessary to succeed on that\u00a0scale.<\/p>\n S-R:<\/strong> You mentioned the past several years have been a bit of a roller coaster. What\u2019s Litehouse\u2019s\u00a0outlook?<\/p>\n Frank:<\/strong> I think the roller coaster is gone. We\u2019ve taken initiatives in the last six months that will level out our business. With our three plants, we\u2019re now in a position to accept a lot of growth without having to do abnormal things. Our sales volume is stellar, so the future looks\u00a0good.<\/p>\n S-R:<\/strong> Your Sandpoint headquarters are rather modest for a corporation your\u00a0size.<\/p>\n Hawkins:<\/strong> You want to stay connected to your employees, and these are modest\u00a0people.<\/p>\n Frank:<\/strong> And anytime we spend money, we half to ask ourselves: Did it sell another jar of dressing or make more profit? If it doesn\u2019t do either of those things, then why make the spend? We\u2019re responsible to 500 families, and we want to give them the biggest retirement we\u00a0can.<\/p>\n Spokane freelance writer Michael Guilfoil can be reached via email at\u00a0mguilfoil@comcast.net.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" SANDPOINT \u2013 Thirty-eight years ago, the Hawkins family of Hope, Idaho, blended salad dressing in the back of their struggling restaurant and sold it to area grocers, generating $100,000 in annual\u00a0volume. Last year\u2019s volume was $3 million \u2026 per\u00a0week. Ed Hawkins Sr. deserves credit for creating Litehouse Foods\u2019 signature chunky bleu cheese dressing. But it […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-visitor-information"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakeandhomes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakeandhomes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakeandhomes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakeandhomes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakeandhomes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=316"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakeandhomes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":317,"href":"https:\/\/lakeandhomes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/316\/revisions\/317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakeandhomes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakeandhomes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakeandhomes.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}