Businessman turned Bob’s Red Mill into a natural-foods giant

Bob Moore, the grandfatherly entrepreneur who, with his wife, Charlee, leveraged an image of organic heartiness and wholesome Americana to turn the artisanal grain company Bob’s Red Mill into a $100 million-a-year business, died on Feb. 10 at his home in Milwaukie, Ore. He was 94.

His death was announced by the company, which did not cite a cause.

Founded in Milwaukie in 1978, Bob’s Red Mill grew from serving the Portland area to become a global natural-foods behemoth, marketing more than 200 products in more than 70 countries. The company’s product line runs a whole-grain gamut, including stone-ground sorghum flour, paleo-style muesli and whole wheatpearl couscous, along with energy bars and cake and soup mixes.

Over the years, the company profited handsomely from the nutrition-minded shift away from processed foods and grains.

“I think that people who eat white flour, white rice, de-germinated corn — in other words, grains that have had part of their nutrients taken away — are coming up short,” Bob Moore said in 2017 in an interview for an Oregon State University oral history. “I think our diets, nationally and international probably, show the fact that we just have allowed ourselves to be sold a bill of goods.”

Despite the company’s explosive growth, Moore fended off numerous offers by food giants to buy Bob’s Red Mill. He opted instead for an employee stock ownership plan, instituted in 2010, on his 81st birthday; by April 2020, the plan had put 100% of the company in the hands of its more than 700 employees.

“The Bible says to do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” Moore, an observant Christian, said in discussing the plan in a recent interview with Portland Monthly magazine.

Although Bob’s Red Mill is an ensemble effort in that sense, its marketing appeal is rooted in the cult of personality surrounding its hirsute founder.

Moore, known for his trademark red vest and white beard, frequently drew comparisons to Santa Claus. (He also was known for his bolo ties and newsie caps.) His gently smiling face adorns the package of every one of his company’s products, along with the tagline “To Your Good Health.”

“Everywhere I go, people recognize me,” Moore said in the 2017 interview, “and I always have somebody to talk to.”

With its folksy earthtone packaging and its heavy emphasis on natural ingredients, Bob’s Red Mill managed to conjure an anti-corporate, back-tothe-land ethos reminiscent of the Whole Earth Catalog era of the 1970s, with clear appeal to ex-hippies and coastal wellness devotees.

At the same time, the amiable, white-haired Bob and Charlee Moore, sometimes seen pictured smiling in one of their two 1931 Ford Model A roadsters, projected a smalltown wholesomeness that seemed perfectly tailored for the heartland.

The wholesomeness was not an act. And it proved a building block to a ninefigure powerhouse.