Natural Value Inc. is, in essence, two people—Gary Cohen and his wife, Jody Stephens.
Gary Cohen began his career in the Natural Food industry in 1978. Following a brief but successful
career in the music industry, he decided to return to his first love—the food business. After venturing
in to one of those “own your own business” shows, he bought some fruit juice vending machines.
Soon he was buying canned juices to supply both himself and other vending machine operators.
Then he began adding natural juices, like Martinelli, Hansen and Knudsen to his line and began selling to natural food stores out of the trunk of his car. Before long he began distributing Health Valley, Hain, and Westbrae products along with his juice. Eventually, he had 2 warehouses, 9 trucks, 38 employees and 3500 products and supplied such customers as Mrs. Gooch’s, Gelson’s, Bristol Farms, Jimbo’s and New Leaf Markets.
Administration of the two warehouses was much more than he bargained for and he longed to ditch the paper work and personnel and get back to selling things one on one. In 1989, he became the National Sales Manager for Santa Cruz Naturals, right before they were bought by Knudsen. After the sale in 1990, he became a natural food broker, successfully representing more than 50 brands of natural products.
By 1995, independent brokers were starting to lose ground to the large brokerage groups that had begun to dot the natural products landscape. 100% placement was no longer good enough for most “manufacturers,” they wanted the cache of “Super Brokerage” representation. Disillusioned, he decided his future lay with representing the real producers of natural products and not the marketing companies who styled themselves as the “manufacturers.”
While many manufacturers were willing to work with him, they explained that he would have to have his own brand to put on the products. They didn’t want to alienate their “manufacturer” customers by going head-to-head with them in the marketplace.
Meanwhile, a self-employed desk-top publisher, writer, designer, graphic artist and trade show producer named Jody Stephens was living in Pennsylvania. Jody’s background is in communications and the arts. Her academic credentials include an undergraduate degree in advertising and a graduate degree in television and radio production with a minor in acting. She has, at various times, worked as a writer/producer and commercial talent in radio and television; as an actor, stage manager and director in the legitimate theater; as a copywriter, journalist and editor of various newspapers and magazines; and as a public relations executive, association management executive and trade show producer. The advent of the Macintosh computer in 1984 gave her the tool necessary to start her own business.
While making a decent living selling her creativity to numerous local and national businesses and organizations, she had begun to realize that if she could just come up with a tangible product to sell, it would continue to work and generate income for her long after her creatively productive days were over. Following a life-altering accident, she reassessed her priorities and decided that, in addition to having a product of her own, she also wanted to have a family of her own. She really wanted to move back to California, where she had lived briefly in the 70s, and she wanted to find an entrepreneurial partner, preferably one with two daughters.
On March 8, 1995, she received an unsolicited e-mail from a guy who had seen her AOL profile and thought she would make a good e-mail pal. The guy, of course, was Gary Cohen.
In May of 1995 they decided to get married and, before the year was over, they had laid the groundwork for Natural Value Inc. Their first 25 products appeared on shelves in May of 1996 and the rest, as they say, is history.
