What Do Hot Dogs and Organic Farms Have in Common?

On April 24th, the Environment SIG invited Dan Horan '95 to share general lessons he has learned on leadership and entrepreneurship. In his talk, he gave a real flavor for his day-to-day activities as CEO and President, and described the challenges of running both Papaya King and, earlier, an organic farm. Here are a few of the highlights of what he presented:

When Dan started Waldingfield Farms everyone around him said an organic farm couldn't be done. He therefore likened both the business he has been involved with as 'climbing without a rope'. He shared stories about the real, practical aspects of running a fast food business: Papaya King is 72 years old so it is very hard to initiate change in the organization - and they are preparing to begin to franchise the business. Just a slight change to the image on the logo took over 9 months to accomplish. They serve over 2,000 customers in a 450 sq. foot facility, so he described programs they have to try to encourage job commitment from the workers. Bonus programs structured on grade point averages for those at community college and scholarships for books, etc. have resulted in an improvement from a 300% replacement rate (hiring for the same job 3 times a year) to a zero percent replacement in the last year. Dan also shared a story about how his environmental passions came into play at Papaya King: he tried to get non-GMO papayas and found unfortunately that it would triple his costs.

After the lecture, Dan spoke about furthering our relationship with him through a field trip to the farm at the end of April. He would also like to revive the weekly sales of produce from his farm outside of SOM (something they did while he was here) in September/October.

The coordinators of Berkeley College (which has a dining hall that serves organic produce) and of the new Farnam Gardens Farm were in attendance as well, and told students about the events on campus related to food and agriculture.