South Florida Business Journal - Fruitfull - Happy & Healthy Products, Inc.

By Darcie Lunsford

One old saw says that revenge tastes sweet. Another warns that it’s a dish best served cold.

That’s right on both counts, judging by the success of Linda Kerr Kamm, founder and president of Happy & Healthy Products. Kamm, 39, found that when you combine both adages, revenge tastes just like a frozen fruit bar.Five years ago the former Miss Georgia 1977 was watching one company being forced into failure and feeling the pressure of raising the capital to start a new one. These days her Boca Raton-based frozen fruit bar company is selling about 7 million of its creations a year.

The treat, called FruitfullŽ, which has 16 flavors and an average retail price of $1, is the sole product of Happy & Healthy. The six-employee company generated more than $3 million in sales in 1996.

But it wasn’t always like that.

Before launching Happy & Healthy, Kamm was the owner of DDI, a Boca Raton company that had the distribution contract for Miami frozen fruit makers, Natural Fruit Corp. A dispute erupted over distribution rights and a legal battle between Kamm and Natural Fruit Corp. broke out. The case is still pending.

Kamm had to come up with a new product or find herself standing in the unemployment line.

Kamm folded DDI in 1992 and poured her hopes into Happy & Healthy. With DDI’s debt still hanging over her head, Kamm used the equity in her Deerfield Beach home as collateral to raise more than $250,000 to launch Happy & Healthy. She spent $50,000 on wrappers alone.

"It was pretty scary then," said Kamm. "DDI had bills and no income."

Kamm had to lay off DDI’s seven staffers, but was able to make good on the company’s bills.

Kamm incorporated Happy & Healthy in 1991. At the time, she had intended her new company to create products for DDI to market and distribute.

"I hadn’t planned to start all over," she said. Still, she managed to post $1 million in sales in 1993, the first year FruitfullŽ was on the market. She started with a handful of DDI distributors who followed to her new venture. They later became the first of her 115 franchisees, working in 36 states and Puerto Rico. Franchises range from $18,422 to $40,161+, depending on the number of bars and freezers each operator wants to handle.

Looking for Mr. Fruitbar

From the beginning, Kamm’s plan was to create a bar that was fruitier than her competitors.

So she hired a California gelatin maker to spin her vision of a marketable frozen fruit bar into reality. The goal was to create a treat that was as tasty as it was healthy. The combination, she reasoned, would make her product stand out.In between the layers of icy juice in a FruitfullŽ are chunks of fruit.

"I wanted big chunks. I wanted delicious flavors, but we were concerned with fat and calories," Kamm said, nibbling on a cherry FruitfullŽ in her Boca Raton office. Kamm’s second-floor office is decorated with antique furniture, big, bulky pieces in light wood, making the room feel more like a country farmhouse than a corporate headquarters. In addition to her Miss Georgia honors, she was also a finalist in the 1977 Miss USA pageant.

"Taste is the most important thing. If you don’t have taste, you don’t have business," Kamm said.

Once Kamm had perfected her blend of flavor and nutrition, she had to find a way to market it.

Impulse sales

She decided to create her own niche by concentrating on individual bar sales to impulse buyers in specialty stores, hospitals, colleges, health clubs and other places where there were fewer concoctions calling out to consumers.

The company is now shifting their focus, Kamm said, developing a four-box package to take the product into supermarkets. Happy & Healthy also is looking for new products.

"Our philosophy is we want to be happy and healthy," Kamm said. "It’s a happy product. People remember the chunks."

It’s also been a profitable product. The company’s sales grew about $1 million dollars a year until 1996, she said. With the addition of 10 new franchises this year, Kamm said she expects sales to increase 10 percent, and rise to $3.5 million next year.

"I think that it is very important that you surround yourself with quality people," Kamm said.

"They always say that with entrepreneurs the biggest problem is that they don’t delegate authority. I am the opposite. I would rather them make a mistake than not make a decision."