Names in the News: Local Organics Pioneer Nell Newman

Santa Cruz's Nell Newman, daughter of celebrated actors Joanne Woodward and the late Paul Newman, grew up in rural Connecticut where her family had an apple orchard and chickens. She spent lots of quality kitchen time with her mom and learned how to fish from her dad, experiences she used to become the designated chef for family holiday dinners.

Newman worked professionally as a child actress during the ‘60s and ‘70s. Later she attended the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine, graduating with a B.S. in human ecology, and later relocated here to the Central Coast. After working for a time with the Ventana Wilderness Sanctuary to help re-establish the endangered bald eagle, she took a position as development director for the Santa Cruz Predatory Bird Research Group at UCSC.

It was while working for the struggling research group, that Newman got the idea to start her own company. Seeing firsthand how successful her celebrity father was in raising money for charity with his Newman’s Own line of products, she wondered if she could replicate that — hence the creation of Newman’s Own Organics.

It took some creative planning for Newman and partner Peter Meehan to convince dad to support a separate company, but she finally won him over by preparing a completely organic Thanksgiving meal for the family. With the green light, they began the startup with organic pretzels, one of Paul Newman’s favorite snacks.

Newman and Meehan agree that organic products should taste like the foods customers loved as kids, only better. Using this philosophy, the organic pretzel became a best seller with other snack foods following, including cookies, organic coffee, olive oil, balsamic vinegar, dried fruit, pet food and a fan favorite, chocolate bars.

"We pay a premium above the current market price for organic cocoa that is tied to the Fair Trade market price," Newman said. "What’s great about the chocolate line is that the cacao is grown in the ancient way so that no rain forests need be destroyed."

It has been almost 20 years since the birth of Newman's Own Organics (now headquartered in Aptos), and over the years the company has earned some major victories, namely the acceptance of McDonald's. In 2002, a number of McDonald's locations in New England started carrying Newman's Own Organics Fair Trade Certified Coffees. The fair trade certification guarantees that farmers in coffee-producing countries receive fair wages.

With the boom in organics over the last two decades, Newman has found that more people are educating themselves on how the food they buy is grown and processed.

"Once people see how much organic foods have improved since the early days of packaged ‘health’ foods...they will seek them out," she said. "...I have great expectations for our company; pretzels were just the beginning."