Related Stories
Nannys idea inspires a wild rice giant
Key Excerpts from Article on Website of Boston Globe
Posted: August 23rd, 2015
http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2013/10/20/nanny-wild-ri...
When George Denny hired a 24-year-old nanny to care for his three children in 1996, the successful private equity investor ... wasnt expecting to gain a future business partner. But Barbara Mattaliano was certain that a wild rice farm Denny owned in California had big commercial potential. We can create a niche brand of wild rice, she told him, and it will sell. Slowly, he came around. In 2009 they started Goose Valley Natural Foods to sell the rice grown on Dennys 6,700-acre farm in Shasta County. Today, Goose Valley claims to be the worlds largest producer of organic and natural wild rice, harvesting between 5 million and 6 million pounds annually. As founding partner, Mattaliano earns a six-figure salary and owns a piece of the company. Just over a decade ago, she was cobbling together an income of about $17,000 working as a nanny and rotating through several part-time jobs. She [had] cut short her college education after being severely injured. For years, Denny had been content to sell his rice to SunWest Foods, a California company that buys and processes the rice from over 300 farmers. But Mattaliano had a different idea. She saw an opportunity to cash in on the growing popularity of natural and organic foods ... and kept pushing her idea to Denny. I told him that in all this time at the ranch in the summers I learned the agriculture end of the business, she said. The turning point came [once Denny admitted], This is not just Barbara pestering me this could be a nice business opportunity.
Note: Explore a treasure trove of concise summaries of incredibly inspiring news articles which will inspire you to make a difference.
Related Stories
Top Inspiring News Articles
Top Inspiring News Articles from Years Past
