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Gary Hirshberg
Chairman and Founding Partner of Just Label It, Chairman and Co-Founder of Stonyfield Farm, and Father of Three Yogurt Eaters
Gary Hirshberg - Chairman, Stonyfield Farm and Just Label It
Gary Hirshberg, the husband of Meg Hirshberg and the father of three teenage yogurt-eaters, is Chairman, of Stonyfield Farm, the world's leading organic yogurt producer, based in Londonderry, New Hampshire.
He is also the author of Stirring It Up: How to Make Money and Save the World, published in January 2008 by Hyperion Books (NY), which outlines how consumers and businesses can be forces for positive and tangible change.
For the past 25 years, Gary has overseen Stonyfield Farm's phenomenal growth, from its infancy as a 7-cow organic farming school in 1983 to its current $260 million in annual sales. Stonyfield has enjoyed a compounded annual growth rate of 27.4% for more than eighteen years, by consistently producing a great-tasting product and using innovative marketing techniques that blend the company's social, environmental, and financial missions.
In 2001, Stonyfield Farm entered into a partnership with Groupe Danone, and in 2005, Gary was named Managing Director of Stonyfield Europe, a joint venture between the two firms with brands in Ireland, the UK and France with more in development.
Gary joined Stonyfield Farm a few months after its start in 1983. Initially he also directed the Rural Education Center, the small organic farming school from which Stonyfield was spawned. Previously, in addition to serving as a Trustee of the farming school Gary had served as Executive Director of The New Alchemy Institute β a research and education center dedicated to organic farming, aquaculture and renewable energy.
A New Hampshire native, Gary was one of the first graduates of Hampshire College in Amherst, MA, has received six honorary doctorates and won numerous awards for corporate and environmental leadership. He serves on several corporate and non-profit boards including Honest Tea, Sambazon, Peak Organic Brewing Company, Dannon Company, and Climate Counts. He is also the Chairman and co-founder of O'Naturals, a chain of natural fast food restaurants. In his spare time, he also serves as the President of the Express Soccer Club and he coaches a girls' under-15 premier travel soccer team, which keeps him humble and certain that he still has much to learn.