Last week I did a post about Phil Knight and the immense societal impact wrought by his transformation of the "gym shoe" into the "running shoe." The Gardenburger was the first mass marketed meatless hamburger, and its influence has been almost as profound as Nike's. But the outcome for Gardenburger and its creator, unfortunately, have been less fortunate.
In the early 1980's a man named Paul Wenner owned a small natural foods restaurant in Oregon. Wenner was a genius of a special kind. He wasn't scientific. He was intuitive. Like Thomas Edison, he followed his instincts and experimented until he got the desired result.
Wenner wanted to serve a meatless, hamburger-like patty in his restaurant. He put together some ingredients and came up with a burger that had the look and texture of a hamburger, and even a surprisingly similar taste. Equally important, the new product didn't crumble and fall apart like earlier soy burgers or other misguided attempts.
Wenner called his creation the Gardenburger. When the Gardenburger was an immediate hit in his restaurant, he began shopping it around to other places. It took off. It started to become a phenomenon. A major investor got involved, and Gardenburger became a major success story. In just a few years it was a $100 million company.
Gardenburger was the first so-called natural food product to be featured in major supermarket chains. Just as Steve Jobs made the personal computer a mainstream consumer product, Paul Wenner's Gardenburger moved from "health food" stores to big time retail outlets. Literally millions of them were sold in supermarkets and restaurants.
The floodgates were opened. More and more shelf space was devoted to natural foods. "Organic" became part of American's everyday language. So did "vegan." A new mainstream category came into being. There would be no Whole Foods were it not for Gardenburger.
Of course, success brings competition. As Gardenburger grew, major food companies came up with their own meatless burgers -- and their marketing budgets were unlimited. Consumers, it turned out, were not especially interested in buying Gardenburger specifically. They just wanted meatless hamburgers, and if Kellogg was now making one, they were down for that. Why not?
Eventually Kellogg bought Gardenburger, and at a rock bottom price.
Gardenburger and its inventor were a classic example of creative inspiration that could not sustain itself in the mundane (and cutthroat) commercial world. It's hard to be both a visionary and a businessman, and even Edison made some huge mistakes. Paul Wenner deserves recognition for lighting a match that turned into a firestorm, even if his invention was consumed by the flames.
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