It all started with a potpie. One night in 1987, disappointed by the frozen food options at their local store, Andy and Rachel Berliner resolved to create a better meal for busy families. Armed with a recipe from Rachel’s mother and motivated to provide for their daughter, Amy, they spent hours in the kitchen honing what would become their company’s first product.
As I saw during my visit to Santa Rosa earlier this month, Amy’s Kitchen has grown from those humble beginnings into a world leader in the production of natural and organic prepared foods. On track to reach a half-billion dollars in sales this year, the company employs more than 2,000 people in Santa Rosa, White City, Ore. and Pocatello, Idaho.
Increasingly, exporting is a critical ingredient of the Berliner family’s recipe for success.
Today, Amy’s Kitchen sells frozen meals and canned soups to 25 countries around the world. With demand rising overseas, exports have become the fastest-growing part of the business.
In Sonoma County and across America, record exports have been spurring growth, supporting good jobs and strengthening the middle class. Last year, California exported a record $174 billion in goods, which supported roughly three quarters of a million jobs. Nationwide, exports supported 11.7 million jobs, an increase of 1.8 million jobs since 2009.
Given these gains, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that President Barack Obama’s trade agenda is a central part of middle class economics. Importantly, jobs supported by exports pay, on average, up to 18 percent higher wages than non-export-related jobs.
Beyond these direct benefits, exporting creates positive ripple effects throughout the larger American economy. Behind every Amy’s burrito sold abroad, for example, there are American vegetable and dairy farmers, truckers, shippers and many others.
Going from the farm to the table takes a team effort, which is why every dollar of U.S. agricultural exports stimulated another $1.22 in business activity in 2013.
To increase these exports and the good jobs they support, we’re negotiating ground-breaking agreements like the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which will level the playing field for American workers and business in the world’s fastest-growing region.
As Asia rises, so does the urgency for American leadership on trade. Currently, more than 40 percent of U.S. agricultural exports go to Trans-Pacific Partnership countries. By 2030, an estimated two-thirds of the world’s middle class will call Asia home, presenting American businesses with billions of potential new customers.
However, reaching these new customers depends on knocking down barriers to U.S. exports. In Japan, for example, consumer-ready products such as soups, pizza, sauces and juice made in the United States face tariffs as high as 30 percent. Under the Trans-Pacific Partnership, we would see those tariffs eliminated, providing companies such as Amy’s a fair chance at competing and winning in these markets.
At the same time it removes barriers to U.S. exports, the Trans-Pacific Partnership will also raise standards in the region.
For example, it will include the strongest enforceable labor and environmental standards of any trade agreement, as well as first-ever provisions on a number of new issues impacting America’s competitiveness - from making sure government-owned corporations abroad compete fairly against our firms to maintaining an open and free Internet to aid our small businesses engaging in e-commerce.
The success of Amy’s Kitchen reminds us that even the biggest accomplishments start with a single step.
By granting Obama trade promotion authority, Congress can help our nation take that first step and ensure that tomorrow’s global economy benefits more Americans.
Going back to FDR and the New Deal Congress, trade promotion authority has been a winning recipe even longer than Amy’s potpie.
U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman toured Santa Rosa-based Amy’s Kitchen during a visit to Sonoma County on March 11.
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