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Jordon Foods: An Entrepreneurial Success Story
By Ronald Childs, Special to AOL BlackVoices
The state of Missouri is perhaps best known as the home of the Gateway Arch, Mark Twain, the Cardinals and, more recently, hip-hop superstar Nelly. But if burgeoning black entrepreneur Marion Jordon has his way, growing successful black businesses will soon be one more reason Missouri is on the map.
A native Mississippian, Jordon, 62, founder, president and CEO of Jordon Foods, owns and operates one of the few black-owned popcorn plants in the nation. Situated on his family's farm in Knob Noster, Mo., a small town about 55 miles from Kansas City, Jordon's flagship brand is the immensely popular "George Washington's All-American Favorite Popcorn," named in memory of his late father. Jordon Foods is also the maker of an array of products that have become staples in many Midwestern family kitchens, including gourmet coffees, pure honey, seasonings, cooking oils, apple butter and steak sauce.
Available in Kansas City area drugstore chains, and in mom-and-pops throughout the metro area, the gourmet popcorn, grown and harvested on Jordon's own farm, is sold to various collegiate foodservice companies, athletic arenas and, if all goes as well, at a grocery retailer near you soon. Jordon wears many hats. He is chief bottle-washer at the popcorn plant, his own publicist and co-founder of the Kansas City Globe, a respected, decades-old, African-American newspaper managed and edited by his wife, Denise. He also fulfills orders for all Jordon Foods' lines online, at www.jordonfoods.com for shipment throughout the U.S.
Established just eight years ago, the company is a fast-rising, first-generation, family-owned black business -- a fact in which Jordon takes enormous pride. He says he was taught to believe in business ownership. Jordan worked diligently alongside his father and brothers on their family farm in Shannon, Miss., in the 1940s and '50s' and has parlayed that passion for an honest days’ work, family values and a solid ethical foundation into a secure future that sees him not just excelling on the production side of agriculture, but also in the lucrative realms of manufacturing and distribution. It's a mindset that he hopes to help engender among many of today's African-American youth.
The Jordon plant provides about ten jobs to young people -- jobs Jordon hopes will kindle their interest in pursuing the agricultural business. In 1920, there were nearly one million black farmers operating in the United States. Today, that number has dwindled, as has the land once held by African-American families and handed down from generation to generation. Over a million acres has been lost in the past half-century, and that downward spiral continues to this day, unabated. Jordon is adamant about getting more African Americans back into the agricultural business. He says he wants blacks to think about ownership versus working for someone else.
"Some [African Americans] never get the chance or never realize the duty of being in the agriculture business," Jordon says. "We never get to see the benefits. My grandmother said to me that we are always consumers but we never consider manufacturing. That's exactly why I'm in the business that I'm in today."
Although he refuses to release his company's financial figures, the tireless CEO reports that Jordon Foods has shown steady growth each year and is working to make it an all-American household brand.
About the Author
Ronald E. Childs is a black journalist living in Chicago. His articles and essays can be found listed on his web site, at www.theomenonline.com
March 24, 2005