The Webster brothers know that money doesn’t grow on trees; however, in the last few years they’ve successfully expanded their family’s 200-acre orchard into a profitable online business.
In 1942, L. Scott and Addison K. Webster’s grandfather started Webster Orchards in Hood River, Oregon. In 1999, the brothers took over the orchard, but added a technological twist. They turned the orchard into a gourmet fruit gifting business and launched it online as The Fruit Company. “Within an hour of getting The Fruit Company online we had our first sale, and we’ve had them every day since,” Scott explains.
The Fruit Company offers high-quality products online—using fruit from their orchards that is usually reserved for the premier foreign markets. In its first year The Fruit Company sold about 550 gifts, and Scott estimates they will sell 25,000 gifts in 2003. Part of their success has come from their recent recognition in Oprah Magazine and partnerships with 1800flowers.com and Amazon.com, which also sell The Fruit Company’s gifts on their web sites.
When Scott was a Marriott School student he enrolled in a course on family businesses. That class, he says—along with other entrepreneurial classes and his work experience—helped him and his brother take the reigns of their family’s business.
After graduating from the Marriott School with his BS in finance in 1992, Addison took a job working for an accounting firm in Yakima, Washington. Scott, who earned his degree in accountancy in 1995, worked as director of sales and marketing for a software company in Boston. When they had a few years of real-world work experience, they took over the orchard operation—with Scott as CEO and Addison as CFO.
Jared Sidwell, a 1995 business marketing graduate, attended the Marriott School with Scott. After graduation, Sidwell worked in Boston as a director in the software industry. He kept in touch whith Scott when he went back to Oregon and in May 2003 Sidwell joined The Fruit Company as director of corporate sales. “The Fruit Company has experienced phenomenal growth, and I feel honored and privileged to be involved in something that will preserve the legacy of the Webster family,” he says.
Despite the difficulties the brothers experienced as they transformed their family’s orchard business into a million-dollar gifting company, they are grateful for the lessons and success they have experienced. “It has been challenging, but it’s been much more rewarding than challenging,” Scott says. “My brother and I have become much closer working through business challenges.”
For more information on The Fruit Company’s products, history, or corporate gifting programs, visit www.thefruitcompany.com.
