Specialty Food Magazine is the leading publication for retailers, manufacturers and foodservice professionals in the specialty food trade. It provides news, trends and business-building insights that help readers keep their businesses competitive.
Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/375622
800-439-1282 • www.dufourpastrykitchens.com info@dufourpastrykitchens.com 2014 sof TM Finalist, Outstanding Classic Original Award-Winning Recipe and Ingredients NOW CERTIFIED KOSHER Winter Fancy Food Show Booth 1071 ly active with the company," Domonic says. Emotional attachment is what's kept Beaverton Foods in the family for three generations. Gene Biggi had the opportunity to sell the company in 1985 for $2 million but instead bought out his siblings. The J.M. Smucker Company made an offer of $17 mil- lion about 15 years later; he rejected that, too. "It was not up for group discussion," says Domonic. "He loves the company more than he loves the money." A Third Generation of Leadership Domonic is as driven as his grandmother and father. He began working at the com- pany as a teenager, putting in hours during middle school, high school, and college at Oregon State University where he majored in business. He worked as a sales rep for a food company for three years, through his college graduation in 1988, and then left the industry for a year to sell photocopiers. "At the time I wanted hardcore sales training," he says. "I learned how to cold call, how to take a lot of rejection. It's a numbers game. Make a certain amount of calls for a certain amount of sales. The more you work, the better the reward." Among those rewards was his father asking him to come back to Beaverton Foods to work in sales in 1990. Domonic chose his home turf as his first territory, a calculated move. "If I worked hard he'd hear about it through the gossip mill," Domonic says. "I took the risk. Since he'd bought everyone out in his family I knew he wouldn't want to producer profile The company has become more attuned to ingredients on the label, paying attention to health trends and hot-button issues like GMOs and high- fructose corn syrup. 46 ❘ SPECIALTY FOOD MAGAZINE specialtyfood.com