Episode description

Tim Heydon started at Shenandoah Growers via an unusual route: along with a few classmates, he wrote a case study on the company while doing his MBA nearby at James Madison University.

This was 1998. Tim joined the company as CEO and has grown Shenandoah into 350 employees across 300,000 square feet of growing/packing facilities in Virginia, Texas, Indiana, and Georgia.

Today, Shenandoah is the leading organic herbs supplier in the Eastern United States.

How did they get here? To start, Tim is a fantastic leader. People like to work for him. Listeners will pickup on this quickly. Strong on innovation, culture, and vision, we talk about the ins and outs of Shenandoah and the keys to their success:

• Why Tim decided to join a herb company with no prior experience in agriculture
• Keys to their impressive employee retention rate
• On staying afloat in the often harsh and unforgiving agriculture market
• Their amazing content website - FreshHerbs.com (check it out!!)
• Cutting edge technology and how it helps their bottom line
• Keys to developing retailer/buyer relationships
• How they plan to transform the food system
• Why the BIG opportunities are in logistics

Selected links from the show:
Shenandoah Growers
FreshHerbs.com