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Reser's Fine Foods has grown a lot from its humble beginnings, when Alvin Reser first started selling his mother Mildred's family-recipe potato salad out of Cornelius, Ore. Reser's Fine Foods Inc. is the successor to a proprietorship started by the Reser family in 1950. Reser's was incorporated in 1960 and Alvin Reser has been president of the Beavertonbased company since that time. The company employs over 1, 600 people and serves customers from coast to coast in the United States plus Canada, Mexico and the Far East.
Although Reser has generally avoided the limelight in his hometown, he isn't getting away from it this year OEF has selected him its Entrepreneur of the Year for 2000. We spoke to Reser about the business shortly before he was named Entrepreneur of the Year Here's what he had to say:
BJ: Tell us how the business started.
My mother started in 1950 in her kitchen making salads in the evenings and on weekends. She was able to supply just enough stores to keep it going. Then she got three or four large accounts, and in late 1953, she moved into a rented building in downtown Cornelius. She was there for 10 years. We went public in 1960 and built a plant on Allen Avenue in Beaverton and moved in 1962. After 27 years as a public company, we went private in 1987.
BJ: When you began as president, what were you charged with?
The business then was seasonal; sales dropped 80 to 90 percent after September. My job was to level out sales the rest of the year. We started selling things like caramel apples September through October, when the kids got free candy at Halloween. And then through the holidays, we ran poultry stuffing and hot buttered...