Using Money to Make Change

Image Gallery Nell Newman started Newman's Own Organics, which makes a variety of snack foods and pet foods, in 1993. To date, the company has donated millions of dollars to charities and helped organic food become mainstream. FRANK GAGLIONE

Imagine a typical New England family Thanksgiving dinner—mouth-watering roasted turkey with traditional bread stuffing (Father's favorite), buttered baby peas, mashed potatoes with gravy, sweet potatoes, tossed salad and fresh pumpkin pie, all served in a homey 200-year-old colonial in Westport, Connecticut.

But this dinner is anything but typical. The food did not come from the supermarket or an upscale gourmet grocer. The meal's ingredients arrived secretly, in two bulging tote bags muscled aboard an airliner in California. This meal is a culinary trap set by a cunning daughter.

Enter the unsuspecting victim, one Paul Newman, actor. His life is about to take an unexpected turn.

"He is very traditional," says the designated holiday cook, Elinore "Nell" Newman, eldest of three daughters of Paul Newman and actress Joanne Woodward. "So, when he finished wiping his plate clean, I asked, 'How did you like your organic Thanksgiving dinner, Pa?' He stopped for a minute, then smiled as he realized he'd been had. 'I see what you mean,' he said. 'I understand now."'

What "Pa" Newman suddenly understood was just how good fresh, organic food can be. Like a lot of Americans, Newman had the idea organic food was nut loaf and yeast gravy from the hippie-dippie 1960s. Nell kept telling him organic wasn't that way anymore. And every time Pa asked her to join his food business, Newman's Own, she came back with the idea of starting her own organic line under the Newman name. They had been arguing about it for years.

"That is why I did the dinner," Nell Newman says of the 1992 organic Thanksgiving, "because whenever I mentioned to him the idea of doing something with organic foods, he turned up his nose. My sole purpose was to educate him about organic, to show him that it didn't have to be heavy, but could be light, good and fresh."

And so Paul Newman gave in. He agreed to cover one year's expenses while Nell and her business partner, Peter Meehan, researched the feasibility of a certified-organic line under the Newman name. Paul had just one condition, as Meehan recalls: "He said, 'Spend what you need to spend, but you have to pay me back, because it is charity money that I would have given away."'

In 1982, Paul Newman and a long-time friend, author A.E. Hotchner, began selling their salad dressings (previously famous among friends and family as holiday gifts) under the Newman's Own brand. At the onset, Newman made a decision that created a unique business model: He decided all his after-tax profits would go to the common good. Sales took off—the line quickly grew to include steak sauce, pasta sauce, popcorn, salsa and lemonade. The 22-year success of Newman's Own has generated more than $150 million for charities that benefit children, the arts, the environment, and disaster and hunger relief.