The Blueberry Billionaire | John Bragg

The Knowledge Project with Shane Parrish

Farnam Street

Business, Investing, Entrepreneurship

4.7 • 2.9K Ratings

🗓️ 1 October 2024

⏱️ 88 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

John Bragg, founder of Oxford Frozen Foods and Eastlink (the largest privately held telecommunications company in North America), shares his journey from growing up in a small village to becoming one of North America’s largest wild blueberry producers and leading a major telecommunications company.

He discusses his early entrepreneurial ventures, why he got into the blueberry business in the first place, and how he pivoted when things didn’t go quite as planned.

Bragg emphasizes key business principles like long-term thinking, efficiency, and maintaining a low-cost mindset. He also reflects on the importance of cultivating strong teams and staying humble despite his success.

John Bragg is the Chairman, President, and co-CEO of Oxford Frozen Foods, a food manufacturing company he founded in 1968. The company operates the largest fruit farm in the world, with over 12,000 acres of wild blueberries. In the 1970s, he started a cable TV company that became North America’s largest privately held telecommunications company. He did all of this from a town of around one thousand people.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Why we succeed it is we tried to find a product we could run and run the hell out of it, as we would say.
0:07.0	We're by far the largest wild blueberry produce.
0:10.5	As we sit here today today we're processing carrots.
0:15.0	We're the largest carrot processor in Canada,
0:17.6	so we learn how to do it and do it well
0:20.3	and then just run it as much as we can. And then we do battered products and we try to do the same thing there.
0:25.0	So stick to your knitting, do what you can do and do more of it and try and grow it.
0:34.3	Don't try and do everything.
0:35.9	There's so many people fail by getting successful in one
0:40.5	and then think they can do everything.
0:43.0	Welcome to the Knowledge Project. I'm your host Shane Perrick. In a world where
0:55.4	knowledge is power this podcast is your toolkit for mastering the best what
0:59.2	other people have already figured out. If you're listening to this it means you're not
1:02.4	a supporting member. Members get early access, no ads, my personal
1:06.2	reflections at the end of the conversation, hand-edited transcripts and so much more. Check out the link in the show notes for more information. My guest today is John Bragg, the
1:15.2	Blueberry billionaire. From Humble Rouge, this entrepreneur that you've never heard of has grown
1:19.8	Oxford frozen foods into the world leader in harvesting and processing wild blueberries.
1:25.2	And if that wasn't enough, he also started and grew North America's largest private telecommunications
1:30.2	firm, Eastlink.
1:31.4	And all of this from a small town with a population hovering around 1,200 people.
1:36.0	I traveled all the way to Oxford, Nova Scotia to hear his story.
1:39.2	How did he start?
	...

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