14/02/2024
Our Boston local Natural Products Expo 🌱natural retailer friends 's Natural Gourmet share kind words & fond Expo memories of 'Bob' of Bobs Red Mill founder! Great story by Debra's son & current owner @ Adam Stark.
Debra Stark, founder of Debra's Natural Gourmet in Concord MA was a 'rock star' 🌟at Natural Product Expo too! RIP Bob & Debra 💕
Yes, Bob (from Bob's Red Mill Natural Foods) was a real person. Simultaneously human and humble, and larger than life. Although I didn't know him well... He passed away this Saturday at 94.
Bob was a decent, kind, real human being. He founded Bob's Red Mill Natural Foods in 1978 with his wife. By 2020, he had turned the entire operation over to his employees (although he remained on the Board). His company made healthy eating accessible in over 70 countries through simple whole grains and organic staples.
My fondest memory of Bob was at Expo West, the annual Natural Products Industry trade show in California. Expo tends to have 80,000 or so attendees. It's BIG. It runs Thursday-Friday-Saturday-Sunday. It's all indoors. It's all warehouses of fluorescent light and concrete flooring and sensory overload. By Sunday, everyone is done -- exhausted, burned out, jaded, and sometimes hung over.
There's a decided lack of enthusiasm on the show floor.
And every year, Sunday morning, in marches BOB! With (I kid you not) an actual marching band. Dixieland jazz! He's in front with his baton. The whole procession comes dancing through the aisles like a shot of caffeine, like a ray of sunshine! And these tired professional trade show people, they join the procession, and they start dancing. It's completely out of place, and it's a perfect fit. That was Bob.
