100% Wine, 100% Good
Most people agree that a bottle of wine and good conversation go well together. Whether it’s a bottle shared between friends at happy hour after work or at a large dinner party on Friday night, wine is a celebratory product meant to spark conversations, usually those about your week or what’s going on in your life. A new bottle of wine has popped up in grocery stores across Columbia, though, that is sparking deeper conversations. And better yet, it’s being used as a device to change someone’s life.
100 Percent Wine is a wine company whose mission is “to partner with local nonprofit organizations to help create jobs for people with disabilities.” At first the company sounds almost unbelievable; it donates 100 percent of its profits to local organizations that are helping provide sustainable jobs for people with disabilities. Founded by Scott Monette, 100 Percent Wine started distributing its wine in November 2014 in St. Louis and recently expanded to include distribution in Columbia. Since expanding to Columbia in February, 100 Percent Wine can be found in all of Columbia’s Hyvee locations, Schnucks and Hoss’s Market. All of the profits from wine sold in Columbia will stay in Columbia; the 100 Percent Wine Foundation will donate all proceeds to a Columbia organization of their choosing.
Monette says this job is way outside of his comfort zone. He worked in finance and consumer products for more than 25 years as the chief investment officer for Hallmark Cards as well as the chief financial officer for Ralcorp Holdings. He says he enjoyed his work in corporate America and was comfortable there, but after reading the book How Do You Measure the Value of Your Life on a business trip, Monette realized he aspired to do something bigger: something that would directly benefit his son Matthew, who is disabled, and people just like him.
“I got to the point where I was like, ‘Something’s got to give. This is not who I aspire to be. I’ve got to do something different,’” Monette says. “Having someone in this population, I felt like employment was what I wanted to focus on, but I wasn’t sure exactly what that looked like. I started to read and explore all the different options, and I found that if things were working, the status quo wouldn’t be what it is from an employment standpoint.”
Celebrating change
Currently, there are around 850,000 working-age Missourians with disabilities and 1 million in total, accounting for about 14 to 16 percent of the total population. Including those who have an immediate family member with a disability, about 33 percent of Missourians are directly impacted. Less than one in three of those people are employed, and less than one in four are employed full time. Monette knew he wanted to do something that would benefit this extremely undervalued population, but how? He decided on wine because over the past two decades, sales in wine have grown every year. He believed by selling wine, he could help spark a social discussion about the employment of people with disabilities in a celebratory way.
“It’s about unlocking economic possibilities of jobs and creating a choice for people, but it’s also about giving people the opportunity to live a better life,” Monette says. “It’s kind of a unique way to break down stereotypes around what people can accomplish if we just look at them differently, and wine’s my device to do that. I thought there’s got to be a way we can have this conversation in a social way, a celebratory way and have this conversation be about people that you’re probably not thinking about or talking about a whole lot.”
Monette began to form an all-star team that would be the core of 100 Percent Wine. He enlisted Chuck Blossom, who was the former CEO of Boone Center Inc., which is a company that employs hundreds of people with disabilities, and Ron Roy, a “wine evangelist” who has immense experience in the wine industry and whose wines appear in the top 10 sellers for Wine.com and Amazon Wines.
“I met Scott through a mutual friend and learned about his goal, his mission in trying to help people living with disabilities with a focus on employment,” Roy says. “Within five minutes it hit a personal nerve with me, as I have a younger sister in this population and witnessed what my mom went through over the years trying to get her more involved in the community and get her a job. I felt if I could help Scott move the needle forward and break down barriers of what people living with disabilities can do and contribute to their community through employment, then I would do my sister Debbie proud.”
The first thing Monette, Roy and Blossom knew they had to accomplish was to provide great quality wine for an affordable price, which isn’t an easy feat for most companies. After they visited many vineyards in California, they secured a partnership with award-winning winemaker Karen Birmingham out of Lodi, California. Their wines have been endorsed by two master sommeliers, which is a testament to their quality. 100 Percent Wine offers two wines: a red wine blend and a Sauvignon Blanc, each retailing between $13.99 and $14.99 in Columbia. Now, they just had to figure out how they were going to incorporate giving back to the people living with disabilities.
“My original plan was to hire people in this population to do the bottling and labeling, but after touring in California, I realized that those jobs were all automated,” Monette says. “I knew I could not add people to an automated process and be competitive. If I cannot be competitive, then the jobs would not be sustainable since this is a business not a charity. We decided that maximizing our profits in the wine business and giving it all away was a better strategy.”
Recognizing value
That’s the whole philosophy behind 100 Percent Wine: to create meaningful, sustainable jobs for people with disabilities and provide actual value for the companies that employ them. Blossom, after working for more than 13 years for a company that employs hundreds of people with disabilities, saw the value this population can provide and knew 100 Percent Wine needed to offer professional guidance to organizations as well as financial support.
“A lot of people are simply pushing these people into the marketplace,” Blossom says. “Our philosophy is if it’s going to be sustained, it has to be a pull from the business. And to get a pull from the business, the employers have to recognize value.
“They’re not doing us a favor; they’re not feeling sorry for someone. We want to create value for these businesses so they understand the appropriateness of the employment, so it’s a different philosophy. It’s not pushing these people into roles that they weren’t prepared for but creating opportunities on the behalf of the businesses, training these people, giving direction, providing support to ensure that they’re successful and that the business recognizes value.”
100 Percent Wine and the 100 Percent Wine Foundation identify organizations in the cities where their wine is sold and organizations they believe are living proof that their philosophy works well. The foundation will make the first donation this spring.
“We’re going to give probably around $5,000 to a St. Louis organization that is doing some really interesting and creative things,” Monette says. “Our goal is to continue to find organizations that are challenging stereotypes and creating employment in the right way and celebrate those.”
Providing sustainable jobs to people with disabilities is mutually beneficial for the employee and the employer. Monette found that 90 percent of consumers want to interact with companies that actively employ people with disabilities.
“The better employment prospects you have for these people, the more credible you’re going to be,” Monette says. “You need to create some jobs and not just put them [people with disabilities] on a billboard because everyone is going to see through that. a successful business has to make more money tomorrow than it did today. My role with 100 Percent is to translate how employing people with disabilities can create a sustainable competition advantage for businesses by appealing to a massive consumer base. In addition to the almost 57 million Americans living with a disability, there are another 100 million with an immediate family member living with a disability, which totals almost 53 percent of the total population. all of these people are consumers and have a very strong interest in creating more choices for this population. By most accounts, this is a trillion-dollar market that is underserved.”
Identifying purpose
Monette says some people have been skeptical about the 100-percent-of-profits aspect, but Monette wants to be transparent about everything the company is doing and publish financial statements. When it comes down to it, he acknowledges he is just a father who is doing everything he can for his child.
“I’m a dad,” he says. “I’m doing this to create a better life for my son and the 57 million like him that are on the outside looking into society. Matthew has been the biggest blessing in my life, he has taught me so much about patience and how to deal with people, and I’m a better person because of him.”
Even though the business is still new to the game, 100 Percent Wine has already had more than a taste of success. Currently, it’s in about 30 locations in St. Louis and within the first 50 days sold about 500 cases of wine. In Columbia, Springfield and St. Louis, 100 Percent Wine has sold 1,000 cases of wine to date. Monette has seen an overall charitable energy in Columbia, and Blossom, a resident of Columbia, says he appreciates the support from his own community. Roy also sees potential for success in the Columbia community.
“My belief in today’s digital society, with communications through technology at an all-time high and Columbia being an amazing college town, is that if we can get people talking and companies reacting to employing people living with disabilities, then the community can become a nationally recognized center for the support of this population,” Roy says. “We want to celebrate people living with disabilities with great employment stories and great support from the community, and Columbia has that in its DNA.”
Monette says 100 Percent Wine will soon be expanding to Kansas City, and he has a vision for the brand to go way beyond Missouri. For now, he is taking his time and enjoying every minute of the ride.
“We can grow a lot more quickly than we’re growing, but I’ve got really longtime horizon, and I want to do this carefully, thoughtfully and authentically,” Monette says. “At the end of the day, it’s about people and relationships. I don’t want to be another guy who flies in, and off he goes, and you never see him again. I have an opportunity to do something really special, and I just want to do it thoughtfully and methodically. This is my life purpose, and I know that I’m a better person because of this and that there’s something here.”
Cheers to that.