Harry & David Gets Hungrier

“Once we divested ourselves of Jackson & Perkins, we turned our attention to finding businesses that would leverage our infrastructure and expertise.” That’s how Bill Williams, president/CEO of Harry & David, neatly sums up the Medford, Ore.-based food marketer’s array of sale and acquisition activity over the past 18 months. “And that naturally took us to food and gift food businesses.”
Indeed, it’s been a rapid transformation for this marketer and grower of fruit, cakes and other food gifts.
• April 2007: Sold its interest in the horticulture multichannel business, Jackson & Perkins.
• January 2008: Acquired Wolferman’s, a cataloger known for its English muffins and its other breakfast foods.
• August 2008: Acquired Cushman’s, a grower and cataloger of citrus fruit.
Uprooting a Fixture
The decision to divest itself of Jackson & Perkins proved difficult for Harry & David. The brand had been a fixture in the Harry & David family since its acquisition in 1966. Jackson & Perkins played a major role in counterbalancing the seasonality of the Harry & David business, where the Christmas holiday season accounts for about 80 percent of sales. February, March and April, typically slower months for Harry & David, were strong for Jackson & Perkins.
“The only drawback is we aggravated our seasonality a little bit,” Williams says upon evaluating his company’s recent acquisitions.
While Wolferman’s and Cushman’s likely will do little to ease the seasonality of the Harry & David operation, they do expand the customer base to which the company can market — in particular, consumers who’ve shown an inclination to purchase food through catalogs.
“These acquisitions give Harry & David the opportunity to leverage its platform among additional brands and market segments,” says Donn Rappaport, chairman/CEO of American List Counsel, whose firm has handled customer acquisition and data management on behalf of Harry & David for more than 25 years. “It gives the company the opportunity to speak to a larger database, model against a larger database and expand its offerings on a real knowledge-based platform to a wider market.”
- Companies:
- Harry and David

Joe Keenan is the executive editor of Total Retail. Joe has more than 10 years experience covering the retail industry, and enjoys profiling innovative companies and people in the space.