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Escape From New York
By, Steve Thompson, President
Emery Thompson Machinery
Although I
hated to leave my beloved NY Yankees, the summer of 2005 found Paula, me
and Sadie the Golden crossing the George Washington Bridge along with
nine tractor trailers to open a brand new factory in a remote section of
the Florida Gulf Coast. Of course I was tired of the freezing rain and
snowy winters, there was also the 45 minute commute to go 7 miles on the
Cross Bronx Expressway. But it was the unions and the taxes that drove
our 100 year old family business out of the Bronx. On the surface what
could be better than NY? Walking distance from the World Headquarters of
baseball – Yankee Stadium; a murder a week neighborhood; hourly trips
down to the factory floor to ask the union welders to turn off Oprah on
their TV; the $300.00 littering fines because someone else’s McDonalds
Big Mac wrapper was on my sidewalk or the $100,000.00 annual heating
bill to bring 40,000 square feet of factory space to a tolerable
temperature.
We had a
union workforce of 24 men. On any given day six employees would call in
sick, drunk, in jail or on their way to jail. Breaking up the almost
daily employee disputes involved the fine art of disarming a man with a
shiv (homemade knife) while trying to tell a man who curses in Farsi
that “your mother wears army boots” is not a derogatory thing to say in
Portuguese. When this is your day to day life you don’t know that there
is any other way to live. You always hear some movie star say “we grew
up poor in Brooklyn but we didn’t know we were poor.” I guess that was
me. After all, doesn’t everyone quell employee uprisings by calling 911?
Then one day there was a rumor on the street that a new Yankee Stadium
was in the works. Over on Manhattan’s west side there was a deal being
formulated to build a new football stadium for the NY Jets. The concept
made no sense whatsoever. The overcrowded West Side Highway would
literally have become a parking lot for the stadium and none of the
residents wanted the unwelcome addition. The suits up in Albany were in
a bind. They needed a shiny new project to defer people’s anger at the
ever increasing confiscatory tax rates. George Steinbrenner stepped up
to the plate and made them an offer they couldn’t refuse. “I’ll build
you a new Yankee Stadium for free…you just give me gazillion
dollars to renovate the surrounding area.” The Albany legislators took
the deal and Emery Thompson would begin its escape from New York. On a
gamble I decided that my worthless building might actually have some
value. After all, the building had 12 inch thick concrete floors and its
own parking lot. Add a spiral ramp and bingo – you’ve got a parking
garage for the new stadium. It worked! We sold the building and off went
Paula, Sadie and me down to our brand new state of the art factory in
Brooksville with just enough money left over to buy a cheeseburger.
Fast forward. It’s been
six years now since we made the big move. My Fifth Avenue accountant
said “Steve, you cannot move a hundred year old factory – it’s
just impossible. The factory workforce is now trimmed down to twelve;
Paula is our office manager and Sadie the Golden is head of Security! On
any given day we are cranking out four times more machines than we ever
did in New York!
Author’s Note:
The opinions expressed here are those of the writer and exactly coincide
with the management and staff of Emery Thompson Machine Company. After
all, I am still a NY Yankee loving New Yorker and you are most likely a
Red Sox fan. So feel free to disagree with me.
More than just the
location changed at Emery Thompson. A world of innovative improvements
came over our family business. Most were planned, some were unexpected.
Trade shows With
the exception of being active in NEICRA and NICRA we dropped all trade
shows. The unions in cities like Chicago, Boston and New York made a
small 8’ x 10’ booth cost well over $15,000.00 for the three or four
days of the show. We gave out a lot of free ices and ice cream but
rarely had time to talk to an interested customer. To fill this void, I
went Hollywood. My Systems Administrator Ken Putt and I decided we could
make individual DVD’s and distribute them for free to our potential
customers. Today we send out over 300 DVD’s a month with titles like:
How to make frozen Desserts; How to make Italian Ice; How to make
Artisan Gelato and Your new Emery Thompson. Think about it! For the next
three hours I will control your TV while you watch me forget to add
water to the Pomegranate Sorbet and Sadie the Golden’s reaction to the
over tart concoction. With the thousands of DVD’s that we have sent out
world wide, I figure Sadie is the world’s most famous dog after Rin Tin
Tin and Lassie! (If you’re under 35 years old you can substitute Benji
for Rin Tin Tin.)
Web Site Our
Systems Administrator also taught me about the value of the internet.
Here’s a big secret! If you go to a web site that opens with a beautiful
young woman eating a sumptuous looking Tiramisu gelato and advertising
an Italian made batch freezer, your computer sees none of this!
Computers don’t see pictures…they read words! When the search engines go
looking for batch freezers, gelato machines or Italian ice makers, they
stop at Emery Thompson first. Because…we talk about these products
instead of showing you someone eating the end results. Our web site,
although a bit hokey (because I write it all) is packed with useful
information relating to all aspects of the frozen dessert business – not
just trying to sell you a machine. I also do live 5 hour seminars on how
to make all the different frozen desserts which can be watched as it
happens or downloaded at our web site. You are most welcome to come to
Sunny Florida and participate in our free seminar. It’s called “Lunch
with the President” and no, the other President couldn’t make it – he
has a golf engagement.
The Competition
There is no doubt in my mind that competition is what makes the buying
and selling of products great. If the store down the street from you
puts fresh picked strawberries on top of their product while you are
using canned fruit – you have to reconsider your decision. Up until
circa 1980 Emery Thompson had no real competition per se. Then came
Gelato. All the ice cream manufacturing companies with American sounding
names started to import machines from Italy. They tried to convince us
that old fashioned hard ice cream was dead and that the wave of the
future was “Artisan Gelato” whatever that means. That’s when I invented
our Infinite Overrun Control. Why have a machine that only makes Gelato
or one that makes only American style ice cream when you can have a
batch freezer that can do it ALL! By all I mean homemade ice cream of
any air content, Gelato, sorbet, Italian Ice, frozen lemonade (slush in
Rhode Island) frozen yogurt, frozen custard a n d any product that
might come along in future years. I personally thought my invention was
just a “fad”. But the I.O.C. has become over 90% of our machinery
production! Gelato is waning in popularity. Yes, yes, I know there are
pockets of successful gelato businesses, but the fact is Gelato is too
narrow cast. If three people walk into my Gelateria and one wants Fruta
de Bosco, one wants bubblegum Italian ice and the third customer wants
Moose Tracks ice cream….I have to turn two of three of them away because
I only sell gelato. Does that make sense to you? Me neither. Don’t get
me wrong – I love Gelato – but for goodness sake, sell every product
your machine is capable of manufacturing.
Pricing Have you
noticed that I publish my price list everywhere? What you see is what
you’ll pay. Does anyone else do this? Hell no! They want to know what
kind of car you drive, how many bedrooms in your house, your total gross
income – then they’ll give you the price of their machine. I don’t get
it. If I’m gonna buy a Ford, I want to know in advance what the thing is
going to cost me. Maybe it’s because they are so much more expensive
than Emery Thompson. The reason for their high prices is simple. They’re
made in Italy or all the major components are shipped over from Italy
and Italy’s currency is the Euro. Right now the Euro is $1.43 to the
$1.00. That means for every dollar you spend with me, you’ll spend $1.43
with them.
With our new CB-350
counter top batch freezer priced at $9,450 and our larger custom built
batch freezers, Emery Thompson builds more machines at more affordable
prices than anyone else in the world. I guess my escape from New York
was a good thing.
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