January 22, 2007

Product Push -- N.O. entrepreneurs bring new ideas to post-K market

By Jaime Guillet, Staff Writer

Aqua2Go entrepreneur Stacey Griffin thought putting water in a juice box would be healthier for children than the sugary drinks that usually come in the same packaging.

Aqua2Go entrepreneur Stacey Griffin thought putting water in a juice box would be healthier for children than the sugary drinks that usually come in the same packaging.

Two New Orleans entrepreneurs - one an established snack distributor, the other launching a new concept for purified water in a drink box - are storming shelves with their products despite Hurricane Katrina's winds of change.

Since the hurricane nearly 17 months ago, business owners have struggled with a shrunken labor force, fewer consumers, logistical nightmares with warehouse space and transportation, and inflated insurance premiums.

Despite the hardships, Alan Elmer of Elmer's Fine Foods and Stacey Griffin of Esgee Enterprises LLC are making news and money in new regional and national markets.

Chee Wees, a baked cheese curl and an Elmer's Fine Foods' flagship product, has been crunching its way through the Gulf Coast region since 1985 when Elmer took over the business from his father, Morel Elmer Jr. The elder Elmer opened the company in the St. Claude neighborhood in 1946.

Before Katrina, Elmer distributed 800,000 pounds of Chee Wees annually to retailers throughout the Gulf Coast Alabama and west Florida. He also distributed caramel popcorn, peanuts, Manny's tortilla chips and wholesale pecans and plastic bags.

Elmer's 20,000-square-foot factory received 9 feet of floodwater post-Katrina. He lost all 12 employees and all inventory in his St. Claude warehouse was destroyed.

"I was heavy with inventory at the time," said Elmer. "I got in on the third week and saw it was a total loss."

New business recipe

While Elmer worked to recover, Linda Silmon, owner of Silmon Wholesale in West Monroe, was bombarded by requests for Chee Wees.

"It was horrible," said Silmon. "People would call up and say 'Where is it?'"

Ron Zappe, founder of Zapp's Potato Chip Co. in Gramercy, approached Elmer about buying Elmer's Chee Wees wholesale and selling and distributing the product side by side with Zapp's.

"I talked back and forth with Zapp's. If I was going to need help with distribution, that was the way to do it," Elmer said.

The deal boosted Elmer's distribution to include all of Mississippi, Alabama and the Florida Panhandle and gave Zappe two types of chips to market to bigger chains such as Wal-Mart.

"We're both Louisiana- and New Orleans-area companies," said Zappe. "They've been providing this product since it was invented. They're established, they're a great product and they're local."

Zappe has been distributing Elmer's product for three weeks and it's "just starting to ramp up."

Water works

While business owners like Elmer - established for 61 years - successfully restart, new business owners such as Stacey Griffin are taking the plunge into the entrepreneurial pool.

Griffin's Aqua2Go purified water, packaged in a juice box, is gaining national attention following its Dec. 5 launch.

Griffin, a clinical social worker with a psychiatric facility Uptown, came up with the idea while sitting on the beach with her 3-year-old daughter, Sophia, reluctantly giving her begging child another juice box filled with sugary drink. Griffin thought putting water in the same packaging would be much healthier.

"The first thing I did from Sandestin, Fla., was look on the bottom of the regular juice box and there's the name of the company that makes it, Tetra Pak," Griffin said. "So I came inside and I Googled Tetra Pak."

Griffin discovered only two companies manufactured a similar product. Aqua Blox in West Palm Beach, Fla., sold its product to the military for disaster relief while Wateroo's in Belmont, Calif., marketed only to children age 5 and younger.

Tetra-Pak connected Griffin with "co-packer" Kiko Foods in Harahan. With the help of family and friends, Griffin developed the packaging and the product name. For just under $30,000, $16,000 of which went toward manufacturing 230,000 water boxes, Griffin received her first 6,550 cases Nov. 22.

Working out of the trunk of her car, Griffin visited independent grocers and made her first placement in Langenstein's grocery store Dec. 5. Whole Foods Market, Smoothie King, Dorignac's and Wow Café & Wingery are now clients. Griffin said she will sign on this week with a national distributor and her product is the first food or beverage product available for sale on Amazon.com's Web site. She also has meetings set with Jefferson and Orleans parish officials and the Archdiocese to put her product in the schools.

"'It's never too late to be what you could have been.' This is a quote I live with," said Griffin. "I think about that every day. People always give up too easily."