Wendell Christoff is the co-founder of Litehouse Inc, the number one refrigerated salad dressing brand in the combined US and Canada. He grew up outside Grand Rapids, Michigan, and was involved from the outset in his family’s salad dressing business, where he worked after school to bottle and deliver their product to local stores. After getting a degree in Food Marketing and Business from Western Michigan University, Wendell joined the U.S. Air Force as a pilot during the Vietnam War before rejoining the family business.
Wendell joins me today to discuss why he decided to change his college major from Pre-Med to Food Marketing and the professor who had a significant impact on his path in life. He shares his experience of expanding his father’s small salad dressing business and why he was motivated to grow the business from its humble beginnings and subsequently seek to partner with another company with similar values. Wendell also talks a little about the importance of diversifying in business and what the company learned from seizing unexpected opportunities.
“Anything that you do that’s worth doing takes a lot of work and a lot of elbow grease” - Wendell Christoff
This week on The Wow Factor:
Wendell Christoff’s Words of Wisdom:
Lead with integrity: The keystone to integrity is trust, and it is vital to build trust into your organization by communicating with people honestly, and to remember as a leader that right is right even if no one is doing it and wrong is wrong even if everyone is doing it.
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