With the recent rash of criminal trials of sports stars accused of everything from assault with a hockey stick to contracting for murder, it is refreshing to see a famous athlete doing something decent. David Deiteman wrote a recent article at LewRockwell.com about the charitable initiatives of Jerome Bettis, running back for the Pittsburgh Steelers. What is not as well known outside Pittsburgh is that another Steeler running back, Franco Harris, who celebrated his 51st birthday last week, engages in off-the-field activities that free-market proponents might find interesting.
Franco Harris is founder, owner, and CEO of Super Bakery, Inc. (website under construction), a maker of high quality pastries distributed nationwide. Super Bakery can accomplish national distribution of fresh pastries because they contract out virtually everything except bookkeeping and recipe development. After nearly 20 years, the business is doing just fine, thanks. And of course Harris has help – he knew enough to hire good managers. The virtual-corporation model is not the only reason for the bakery's success: Recipes continue to be developed at Penn State University's research kitchen, and a recent new product, the "Super Muffin", is loaded with calcium, protein, and vitamins and minerals, and is intended to be enjoyed by children. Nor does Franco stop there. Super Bakery has provided scholarships to minority students majoring in food science.
In 1996, Harris bought a sausage business that was on the verge of closing its doors; the business is still alive and doing well. Harris had the sense to buy a business with some name recognition – Parks Sausages – and a location (Baltimore) fairly close to his core fan base. In so doing, he revived some childhood memories for a lot of hot-dog-loving east-coast baseball fans.
Putting aside the obvious feelgood humanitarian aspects of giving scholarships and doing other direct charity work (and whether corporations even should do such things is a contentious issue among business and legal scholars), there is a host of ways in which Franco Harris is a great capitalist role model. Consider some of what he's done: He's grown a successful bakery business that employs workers and provides value to customers. The value provided to customers is manifold, in that the company attempts to provide both a convincing taste treat (a new recipe may be taste tested through 100 modifications) and high nutritional value at a competitive price. The business model developed by Super Bakery is an exemplar of specialization: All production processes aside from developing recipes and coordinating contracts are bid out to firms that do one thing well. This is an excellent business model for low-cost production at any target level of quality – transportation costs are minimized, startup infrastructure development for Super Bakery was near zero (at least compared to what it could have been), and every type of flexibility is maximized.
In the sausage business, Harris has rescued jobs from the brink, and generated new jobs. It happens that Park Sausage was the first black-owned company in the United States to be publically traded, and was located in a depressed neighborhood in Baltimore. Harris knew none of this when his interest in the company was piqued; he just knew that with his management team, he could turn it around. He was right not to focus on historical triviata. Creating value was at the top of his list. But it is encouraging that those who do know the history may feel a sentimental urge to patronize the business, because I want to see this business succeed. I want to see whether Franco and his associates are as clever with sausage as they are with baked goods.
What Harris has done, most fundamentally, is compete. Concerted use of research and development, risk taking, and bold ventures in corporate design have replaced weightlifting and conditioning drills, but Harris competes in business as he did in football. A hundred years from now, Franco Harris the Steeler will be the answer to a sports trivia question, perhaps as Francis Ouimet is today. It is entirely plausible, however, to say that a century hence we could see Franco Harris the entrepreneur discussed in business textbooks.
An economy full of businesses that are as innovative as Super Bakery is an economy I want to live in; this sort of competition makes life much better for everyone – whatever you want to buy gets better and/or less expensive all the time. The example Mr. Harris sets is to be emulated.
March 13, 2001
Brad Edmonds, Doctor of Musical Arts, is a banker in Alabama.
