The Entrepreneurial Edge
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Jonathan King '87, Stonewall Kitchen Photo by Doug Prince

Recipe for Success

Jonathan King '87
Stonewall Kitchen

hen Pope John-Paul II visited Boston in the late '70s, 14-year-old fledgling entrepreneur Jonathan King '87 saw a business opportunity. He packaged and sold bags of "Popecorn" to the amused and hungry crowd. Today King and partner Jim Stott own Stonewall Kitchen, one of the nation's most successful specialty food companies. The business began on a card table at the Portsmouth, N.H., Farmers' Market exactly ten years ago, and the partners expect to mark the anniversary by topping $20 million in annual sales.

King, whose cropped blond hair and boyish face shave a decade off his 35 years, strolls through Stonewall Kitchen's York, Maine, headquarters nearly every day to greet employees by name. The sage-green and beige decor of the rambling clapboarded building reflects the down-home style that has become the company's trademark. As King begins his walk, he hears laughter from the glass-walled kitchen, where a group of uniformed chefs taste their latest culinary experiments. Nearby, in an open area surrounded by spacious cubicles, the customer-service staff is taking a break. Standing in a circle, they follow the lead of a spiky-red-haired human resources director, who demonstrates how to exercise sore wrists and fingers. "Hello, Jonathan!" they call out as King passes.

Stonewall Kitchen grew out of King's passions for gardening, cooking and marketing. In his mid-20s, he loved to grow herbs, vegetables and fruits and often spent weekends experimenting with new flavors for herbal vinegars, salsas, jams and cooking oils. Encouraged by friends who had received his creations as gifts, King enlisted Stott's assistance and took an assortment of things he'd made to the farmers' market one Saturday. "We sold out the first day. A lot of people had never seen roasted garlic oil or pesto and sun-dried tomatoes before," King says. "The next week the customers were back--addicted."

Their quick success plunged King and Stott into intense production mode, and they headed out separately to "push the products" at every possible venue. It was exhausting, all-consuming work, and it paid off. The first summer they took in $20,000, and the next year, $250,000. "We did it all on a shoestring," says King, who couldn't even get a business loan for a used truck and had to borrow money from friends and relatives.

The turning point for Stonewall Kitchen occurred in 1995, when the partners attended an international fancy food show and received the "Outstanding Product Line" award from 100 judges in the industry. "It was like a movie producer winning the Best Picture award," says King. "It launched us." Stonewall Kitchen won the same award the next year and has since become one of the industry's most respected companies. Today it earns 60 percent of its revenue by wholesaling products to 5,500 specialty stores internationally and the other 40 percent through its direct-to-consumer division, including five retail stores, a consumer catalog and an online site. In the near future, Stonewall Kitchen plans to expand beyond the kitchen into home and bath product lines. "Stonewall Kitchen was the name brand for specialty foods, but now it's come to represent a distinct lifestyle," says King. King believes that the qualities that set entrepreneurs apart are an inexhaustible passion for what they do and the confidence to follow their own instincts. "You truly have to believe in yourself and be able to make others believe in you," he maintains.

King's ability to manage and motivate employees and to identify market opportunities has been crucial to the company's success. Here his psychology degree comes in handy; he developed strong listening skills and an ability to discern what customers want and what drives employees to succeed. "We look for people who want to grow. We're demanding and expect people to excel," he says. His company offers good wages and benefits, but he doesn't think money is a sufficient motivator. "People want a sense of ownership, the power to make decisions about how to serve customers and the ability to follow through on them."

King's own drive to excel sets the standard for the entire company. "The saying around here goes, 'Jonathan would like it this way.' It's my style that defines the Stonewall Kitchen look. I'm a perfectionist--absolutely. As Martha Stewart says, 'Perfection is profitable.'"