D.J. Forry sales manager leaves to start new marketing company
D.J. Forry sales manager leaves to start new marketing company
Cary Crum, sales manager at D.J. Forry Co. in Reedley, CA, has announced that he is leaving Forry to start his own marketing company, Green Tree International Inc., in partnership with John Rast, owner of Rast Produce Co. Inc. in Visalia, CA.
The new company will be located in Visalia and will focus initially on developing marketing contracts with table grape growers in California and on building a year-round table grape program that includes imported product from Mexico, Chile and possibly Peru, Mr. Crum said.
?I am proud of the role that the Forry family has allowed me to play in building D.J. Forry Co. into the success that it is today," Mr. Crum said in a statement. "It makes me happy that together we have achieved nearly all of the goals that were laid out when I joined the company nearly six years ago."
He said that the annual sales at Forry were around $20 million when he joined the company and have since risen to $52 million.
He and the Forry family "are parting on good terms," he said. "Our relationship has been a blessing to both of us, and for this I will forever be in their debt."
Mr. Crum told The Produce News that the reasons for his departure are complex, but they involve primarily his desire to own and build his own marketing company, and to build a future for himself and his family. He said that he had hoped to negotiate an equity interest in D.J. Forry, but the owners preferred to keep it a family company.
Mr. Crum and his partner in the new venture, Mr. Rast, are already partners in a truck brokerage company, Sierra Agricultural Transportation Inc. Mr. Crum said that Rast Produce, which for the past three years has been exclusively a brokerage operation, will continue as a brokerage and will be the focus of most of Mr. Rast?s attention. However, Mr. Rast will split a portion of his time between Sierra Ag Transport and Green Tree.
?He has tremendous talent," Mr. Crum said. In deciding on a partner, "I didn?t think of another person besides John Rast." He said he sees Mr. Rast?s involvement in the business "as a great asset."
Although Green Tree is a separate corporation from Sierra Ag Transport, which does an annual business volume of $8 million, the new firm will draw on some Sierra?s existing resources, such as its accounting staff and the bank relations.
Mr. Crum said that unlike many produce marketing company start-ups, Green Tree will be building the business from scratch. "We have no growers signed up at this point. We have no customers signed up," he said, explaining that the decision was a conscious choice.
?When most people leave a company? to go on their own, he said, "they line up a grower whose fruit they have been selling at the company they have been working for? or they take with them "a big customer. " They are jumping out and doing something with an existing relationship. It was real important to me not to do that to the Forrys," not to go behind his employer?s back and make secret deals, he said.
?I don?t anticipate overlapping growers with the Forrys, with the exception of Mexico," he said. "I came up with the concept of moving that company into the Mexican grape market three years ago, and I have invested a lot of my time and effort in developing that Mexican grape grower base, and we will be involved in Mexico. We have the financing lined up to do that. We are going to go down and try to develop a small program and basically earn our way into the business."
Mr. Crum said that he had made it a point to tell the Forrys that "we probably would overlap? on the Mexican deal.
Green Tree?s short-term goal is to market around a half-million boxes of grower-contracted table grapes. "We are going to work real hard at developing a year-round grape program," although it may not be a huge program, he said.
The company will also do some brokering, not only of grapes but of stone fruit or other items customers may need. It is possible that the company may also be involved in marketing stone fruit at some point, said Mr. Crum, who has 15 years of involvement in stone fruit. "But that is definitely on the back burner at this point."
Mr. Crum, who also owns a farming operation that includes 75 acres of plums, peaches and Pluots, will continue his service on the peach board of the California Tree Fruit Agreement, to which he was recently re-elected, as well as on CTFA?s Domestic Promotions Committee.
After studying viticulture at California State University-Fresno, Mr. Crum went to work for O.K. Produce, a wholesale house in Fresno, to get a broad experience with the produce industry "from apples to zucchinis, from buying and selling to servicing retailers." Three-and-a-half years later, he joined Sun World International as an entry-level salesman. He was there for six years and became "the number-one volume salesman there," selling a volume of almost 3 million boxes of produce in his final year with the company.
For personal and family reasons, he decided he needed to return home to Reedley, CA. He and John Harley, who had previously worked for Sun World and is now sales manager at Anthony Vineyards, formed a partnership with the Alvin Peters family in an ill-fated venture called Rich Harvest Sales Co. Although Rich Harvest marketed a half-million boxes of stone fruit in its first season, the company lasted only that one season, Mr. Crum said, noting that there were various reasons for its failure.
?At that time, I was approached by the D.J. Forry family to come to work for them as their domestic sales manager? and build a domestic business. At the time, Forry was primarily involved in export sales.
?We set off with a bunch of goals? and realized most of them, he said. "They are wonderful people to work for as an employee, but I always wanted to start my own company."
The new company will be located in Visalia and will focus initially on developing marketing contracts with table grape growers in California and on building a year-round table grape program that includes imported product from Mexico, Chile and possibly Peru, Mr. Crum said.
?I am proud of the role that the Forry family has allowed me to play in building D.J. Forry Co. into the success that it is today," Mr. Crum said in a statement. "It makes me happy that together we have achieved nearly all of the goals that were laid out when I joined the company nearly six years ago."
He said that the annual sales at Forry were around $20 million when he joined the company and have since risen to $52 million.
He and the Forry family "are parting on good terms," he said. "Our relationship has been a blessing to both of us, and for this I will forever be in their debt."
Mr. Crum told The Produce News that the reasons for his departure are complex, but they involve primarily his desire to own and build his own marketing company, and to build a future for himself and his family. He said that he had hoped to negotiate an equity interest in D.J. Forry, but the owners preferred to keep it a family company.
Mr. Crum and his partner in the new venture, Mr. Rast, are already partners in a truck brokerage company, Sierra Agricultural Transportation Inc. Mr. Crum said that Rast Produce, which for the past three years has been exclusively a brokerage operation, will continue as a brokerage and will be the focus of most of Mr. Rast?s attention. However, Mr. Rast will split a portion of his time between Sierra Ag Transport and Green Tree.
?He has tremendous talent," Mr. Crum said. In deciding on a partner, "I didn?t think of another person besides John Rast." He said he sees Mr. Rast?s involvement in the business "as a great asset."
Although Green Tree is a separate corporation from Sierra Ag Transport, which does an annual business volume of $8 million, the new firm will draw on some Sierra?s existing resources, such as its accounting staff and the bank relations.
Mr. Crum said that unlike many produce marketing company start-ups, Green Tree will be building the business from scratch. "We have no growers signed up at this point. We have no customers signed up," he said, explaining that the decision was a conscious choice.
?When most people leave a company? to go on their own, he said, "they line up a grower whose fruit they have been selling at the company they have been working for? or they take with them "a big customer. " They are jumping out and doing something with an existing relationship. It was real important to me not to do that to the Forrys," not to go behind his employer?s back and make secret deals, he said.
?I don?t anticipate overlapping growers with the Forrys, with the exception of Mexico," he said. "I came up with the concept of moving that company into the Mexican grape market three years ago, and I have invested a lot of my time and effort in developing that Mexican grape grower base, and we will be involved in Mexico. We have the financing lined up to do that. We are going to go down and try to develop a small program and basically earn our way into the business."
Mr. Crum said that he had made it a point to tell the Forrys that "we probably would overlap? on the Mexican deal.
Green Tree?s short-term goal is to market around a half-million boxes of grower-contracted table grapes. "We are going to work real hard at developing a year-round grape program," although it may not be a huge program, he said.
The company will also do some brokering, not only of grapes but of stone fruit or other items customers may need. It is possible that the company may also be involved in marketing stone fruit at some point, said Mr. Crum, who has 15 years of involvement in stone fruit. "But that is definitely on the back burner at this point."
Mr. Crum, who also owns a farming operation that includes 75 acres of plums, peaches and Pluots, will continue his service on the peach board of the California Tree Fruit Agreement, to which he was recently re-elected, as well as on CTFA?s Domestic Promotions Committee.
After studying viticulture at California State University-Fresno, Mr. Crum went to work for O.K. Produce, a wholesale house in Fresno, to get a broad experience with the produce industry "from apples to zucchinis, from buying and selling to servicing retailers." Three-and-a-half years later, he joined Sun World International as an entry-level salesman. He was there for six years and became "the number-one volume salesman there," selling a volume of almost 3 million boxes of produce in his final year with the company.
For personal and family reasons, he decided he needed to return home to Reedley, CA. He and John Harley, who had previously worked for Sun World and is now sales manager at Anthony Vineyards, formed a partnership with the Alvin Peters family in an ill-fated venture called Rich Harvest Sales Co. Although Rich Harvest marketed a half-million boxes of stone fruit in its first season, the company lasted only that one season, Mr. Crum said, noting that there were various reasons for its failure.
?At that time, I was approached by the D.J. Forry family to come to work for them as their domestic sales manager? and build a domestic business. At the time, Forry was primarily involved in export sales.
?We set off with a bunch of goals? and realized most of them, he said. "They are wonderful people to work for as an employee, but I always wanted to start my own company."
