[185] in Humor
HUMOR: Some People Can Sell Anything!
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (abennett@MIT.EDU)
Fri Apr 8 10:01:30 1994
From: abennett@MIT.EDU
To: humor@MIT.EDU
Date: Fri, 08 Apr 94 09:46:21 EDT
Date: Tue, 5 Apr 94 15:01:31 PDT
From: ckleinja@Novell.COM (Connie Kleinjans)
Subject: HUMOR: Some People Can Sell Anything!
<forwards decomposed>
Copyright: 1994 by The Associated Press, R
Date: Thu, 24 Mar 94 22:20:11 PST
COATESVILLE, Pa. (AP) -- John Rothman considers himself something
of an ``entre-manure,'' a fitting term for a man who makes good
money selling sculpted cow dung.
Rothman's product is PooPets -- garden figurines with names like
Stool Toads, Turdles and Bowel Owls -- fashioned by 30 Amish farm
families and finished at his small plant outside Coatesville in
southeastern Pennsylvania.
Last year he sold 100,000.
``We can't make them fast enough,'' said Rothman, 45, president
and co-owner of Tewksbury Gardens Inc. ``Anybody can make money
selling ... (feces) in America if you package it appropriately.''
The sturdy, odorless figurines leech natural fertilizer into
gardens with each rainfall and last for years, Rothman said,
declining to divulge the secret method he uses to strip out the
stench.
``We sold out 100 percent at Christmas,'' said Reed Roeser, who
carries the item at his environmental products store, The Blue
Marble, in Philadelphia. ``I even sold the one-eyed frog out of the
window. That's how popular they are.''
Last year, the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society gave PooPets
to the winners of its City Gardens Contest in Philadelphia.
``The reaction was wonderful. There were lots of chuckles and
snickers,'' said contest coordinator Flossie Narducci.
PooPets are getting mixed reviews at Jim Beale's upscale Main
Line Gifts in San Francisco, however. The product sells fairly well
but ``turns a lot of people off,'' he said.
Rothman, a former pharmaceutical company executive who lives in
Tewksbury, N.J., ticked off a list of PooPet's virtues: it's an
easy way to care for plants, helps reduce farm runoff that
contaminates the Chesapeake Bay and represents genuine American
craftwork.
``What really sells the product is the humor,'' he said.
In late February, Rothman said, Tewksbury Gardens had 500 orders
for 15,000 pieces, which sell for $8 to $14; a Mini-Poo costs $3.
The company, which Rothman runs with partner John Flaharty, has
filed for patents on PooPets and plans to expand sales to Britain.
Working in a former creamery near Coatesville, Rothman's six
employees dry, pack and stock thousands of pigs, cats, frogs,
turtles and rabbits. They form eyes by sticking mustard seeds or
blackeye peas on the animals' faces.
At one end of the building, a heater and fans shoot warm air
into an open truck filled with manure. The company uses about 12
tons a week, mixing the dung for consistency before delivering it
to Amish families in Lancaster County.
The farm workers, paid by the piece, pack the manure into
aluminum molds, then remove them and work on the ears, nostrils,
claws, mouths and dimples.
The drying process goes into high gear at the plant, where two
women busily stuff finished PooPets into cardboard boxes.
Rothman, a native of New York with a Ph.D. in pharmacology, left
his job as director of drug development for pharmaceutical maker
Hoffman-La Roche Inc. about four years ago, tired of 15-hour days
and extensive travel.
After dabbling in another business, he stumbled on the PooPet
idea about 1 1/2 years ago, when a farm wife showed him a cow manure
figurine she had made. The Massachusetts woman, who receives a
royalty for her invention, does not want her name published,
Rothman said.
He tested the idea in a barn on an Amish farm in Bird-in-Hand,
Pa.
After a personal encounter with a dung beetle and having his
prototypes destroyed by barn swallows and field mice hungry for
undigested corn, Rothman and Amish helpers eventually worked the
``bugs'' out of the product.
``I've got more degrees than a thermometer and I'm making ...
(feces) figures. It drives my mother nuts,'' Rothman said.
