Making and selling Yoder's Good Health Recipe didn't come about because of some grand
plan to enter the health food/supplement industry. I call this business "My Accidental Business".
Prior
to making the recipe for the first time, my background was primarily in the field of manufacturing consumer and commercial
goods. Over a thirty year career, I held management jobs in Quality Assurance, Manufacturing Engineering, and Manufacturing
Administration. About seventeen years ago, I was injured and was required to recuperate at home for an extended period of
time. After way too much time spent in front of the television, I decided (actually, my wife decided for me) to go through
a bunch of boxes that had been stored away for a number of years.
While going through these
boxes, I came across an old tattered recipe that was handwritten on five unlined pages. It was my Grandmother's recipe for
her tonic. As I looked over these pages, my memory wandered back almost fifty years ago to when I was just a five or six
year-old spending time with my Grandparents. I thought back to the early mornings when Grandma would be busy in the kitchen
to get breakfast on the table so that Grandpa could get an early start to his day as a farmer. Actually, he'd already been
out to milk the cows, so his day had already begun. Once Grandma had the breakfast on the table, she would go over to her
icebox (not a refrigerator), get a little jug out of it, and pour herself a little bitty glass of a reddish liquid. When
I asked her the first time what it was, her reply was, "It's my tonic that helps what ails me".
I
can remember that as if it was yesterday. So, as I sat there repeatedly looking at those pages, I thought to myself that
this might be something that other people would like. I wrote down the ingredients and started to find out where I could
get them. Once I found a source for the herbs, I ordered a small amount and waited anxiously for them to arrive.
In
about a week, I received all the herbs and started the process of making each of the tinctures. It takes two weeks for the
tinctures to mature, but it takes action everyday to make sure the process is completed properly. Within three weeks, I finally
had my first batch of the recipe and actually put it into mason jars. I gave it to a few friends and asked them to use it
everyday for about a month. Of course, I was kidded about making moonshine or being a "snake oil salesman".
After getting back some pretty good comments from my friends, I decided that I needed to go to the
next step and to put the product into the hands of people who would be willing to buy it. I didn't think the recipe or it's
packaging was sophisticated enough to sell in health food stores, so I decided to call on beauty shop operators. I figured
that women sitting in a beauty shop were bound to talk about their health. I gave them a sample bottle and a stack of brochures.
I told them that if one of their customers wanted to buy a bottle,they could call me and I'd deliver it to them. Pretty soon,
some of the beauty shop operators wanted to buy a full case so they could display it in their shops. It was then, that I
decided to bring our recipe to the marketplace.
After reading a number of books on marketing,
I made some important decisions that would affect how we would be able to grow our new business. I didn't want our recipe
to be "the miracle of the month", and I didn't want to make outrageous claims that would violate the rules of the
FDA. I wanted it to survive because it was a good product and not because we could come up with a gimmick to market it.
I decided I wanted to grow the business carefully and I was going to sell it to "Mom and Pops" and keep it away
from chain stores. To make a very long story short, pretty soon, people started calling and wanting our product.
Over
the years, we've received thousands of positive comments about our recipe. We still make it the same way that my Grandma
did, except we make it in a government-approved Amish kitchen. It's still mixed by hand, bottled by hand, and labeled by
hand. We will never make it using a high-speed bottling line. It just wouldn't be the same. We still don't have a high-powered
marketing organization. We rely mostly on word-of-mouth and depend on people telling their local store about us. We're still
a very small business and we'll continue to be small. That's just the way I want it. If you call the number on the back
of the bottle, chances are, David or Amber will be the one to answer the phone.
It's also important that our customers buy our product because they believe in the value of the ingredients in
it, and not by any implied claims of miracle cures. We take the rules of the FDA seriously. If you think the ingredients
in our product may help you, you should consider buying it. If after using it and it's not "the tonic that helps
what ails you", we want to make it right. If it doesn't satisfy you in any way, take it back to the store for a
full refund. If you're not happy, we're not happy.
Some people
will see our product as nothing more than a scheme to take advantage of those believing in herbal remedies. Yeah, some
people will call it "snake oil". We don't claim it to be anything other than what it is- a tonic made with
various herbal tinctures and apple cider vinegar. It is what it is. A lot of people have claimed that it's helped
them with various ailments and conditions. We can't tell you whether it will help you or not.
