115 Million Cups of Comfort: Kozy Shack Pudding

Have you ever been asked, as part of a personal visioning exercise, to write your own obituary?

To all of those MBA students and executives who had to do just that in my leadership classes, I officially apologize.

While I understand the merits of imagining what your life could have been like as a way to envision what your life could be like, I myself have only ever been able to write about the quality of family, friends, and community I hope to leave behind.  I’ve not yet been able to project into the future what my career accomplishments would be.

And today (1/11/08) as I looked at the New York Times obituary page, I wonder how many options we unintentionally close off when we think of our future past careers, simply because they don’t seem grand or glamorous. Just underneath and to the right of an awe-inspiring obituary of Sir Edmund Hillary was the obituary for Vincent Gruppuso, 67, the founder of Kozy Shack Enterprises in Hicksville, Long Island.

You’ve probably never heard of Vincent Gruppuso.  I hadn’t heard of him until today. But you might be one of the 115 million consumers who enjoyed his rice pudding last year.  Yes, rice pudding.  The man was notable, famous even, for his rice pudding.

Can you think of any management student who would have imagined this line in his or her obituary:

Rice pudding, like baked beans, has slipped out of the culinary spotlight, but this version makes up in flavor what it lacks in glamour.

The story (which I quote from the NYT) reads like yet another entrepreneurial tale…  One day, on a break from his bread delivery route, Gruppuso stopped at the Cozy Shack delicatessen  and tasted its creamy rice pudding.  Soon after he began selling trays of the pudding at his other stops.  In 1967, he bought the recipe and set up a small factory in Ridgewood, Queens.

The rest, as they say, is history. The obituary doesn’t say much about Mr. Gruppuso as a brother, husband, father, or grandfather, but it does tell us one important thing: the man found something he loved and he found a way to share it with others.  About 115 million others, each year.

When it’s all said and done, isn’t this what we want our obituaries to acknowledge, that we found something we loved and found a way to share with others? Whether it’s a comfort food like rice pudding or a dream adventure like scaling Mount Everest, don’t we each have something worth sharing?

As it happens, Kozy Shack rice pudding is on sale this week at ShopRite.  Although rice pudding is not something I usually buy, I look forward to serving a few cups of Kozy Shack to my family tonight. We’ll take a moment to reflect on Mr. Gruppuso’s career accomplishments and appreciate how his little story makes up in flavor what it lacks in glamour.

Tagged as: authentic product, careers, comfort, Comfort food, Edmund Hillary, Kozy Shack, Master of Business Administration, MBA teaching, obituaries, Vincent Gruppuso