Burt's Bees

1984–1989: Founding

Originating in Maine in the 1980s, the business began when co-founder Roxanne Quimby started making candles from Burt Shavitz's leftover beeswax. The first headquarters was an abandoned one-room schoolhouse rented from a friend for $150 a year. This eventually led to the bottling and selling of honey by the two co-founders, and Quimby's focus on maintaining high quality helped to grow the business from an initial $200 at the Dover-Foxcroft Junior High School craft fair to $20,000 in sales by the end of its first year.

The practice of bottling honey slowly diminished as the company evolved as a corporation. The company eventually began selling other products that used honey and beeswax, including furniture polish and edible spreads, before moving more fully into personal care products.

Burt's Bees increased production in 1989, after a New York City boutique, Zona, ordered hundreds of their beeswax candles. The company hired 40 additional employees and started manufacturing products in an abandoned bowling alley. During this time, Quimby read one of Burt Shavitz's 19th-century books about bee-keeping that included recipes for personal care products, prompting Burt's Bees to shift into the personal care products industry.

1990s: Incorporation and diversification

Burt's Bees incorporated in 1991 with a product line that included candles, natural soaps, perfumes, and, eventually, lip balm, which became their best-selling product.

In 1994, the business moved to North Carolina. Soon after, Quimby forced Shavitz out of the company's operations after learning he was having an affair with an employee. Burt's Bees changed its focus to exclusively personal care products. In 1995, the company moved its manufacturing operations into a 18,000-square-foot (1,700 m2) former garment factory in Creedmoor, North Carolina. Although Burt's Bees continued to focus on the "homemade" product theme, automated machines, such as a former cafeteria mixer from Duke University, were introduced to increase production. Chapel Hill was the site of the first Burt's Bees retail store, which offered 50 natural personal care products, and distribution had also reached the Japanese market.

In 1998, Burt's Bees was offering over 100 natural personal care products in 4,000 locations with sales in excess of $8 million. Distribution had reached national retailers, such as Whole Foods Market, and restaurant chains, such as Cracker Barrel. New product offerings branched into travel-sized skin care and hair care products. In 1999, with increasing demand and an increase in product offerings, including sugar and milk-based body lotions and bath products; Burt's Bees relocated to Durham among the many other enterprises located in the Research Triangle area of North Carolina. An eCommerce website was launched, increasing distribution to a much larger, nationwide scale.

In 1999, Quimby bought out Shavitz's one-third stake in the company, in exchange for a house in Maine, valued at approximately $130,000.

2000–2006: New products and AEA

During 2002 and 2003, Burt's Bees launched its first toothpaste, first shampoo, and its successful Baby Bee product line of infant personal care products. Co-founder Quimby also used company-earned profits to preserve 185,000 acres (750 km2) of forest land in Maine, marking the beginning of a relationship with The Nature Conservancy, an international organization engaged in environmental protection and conservation.