As Tiburon Goes, So Goes California

Tiburon facts:

- population: 8666

- County: Marin

- area: 13.2 square miles

- name derivation: from Spanish word for shark

- # restaurants: 18

NPR was recently talking with the founder and CEO of BanTransFat.com, Stephen L. Joseph. His story begins simple enough. He served as an attorney and lobbyist in his early career. His step-father died from a heart attack in 2001 at the age of 73. Joseph came to find that the doctors believe that a diet high in trans fat contributed to his step-father's death. His journey to rid the world of trans-fat was ignited from this event.

The tactics and tenacity of Joseph and his team are profound. At the time of his tran fat free campaign, the public awareness of the health dangers of trans fat were close to zero. Joseph changed that by targeting America's most-beloved cookie - the Oreo. He filed a lawsuit against Kraft in 2003 to eliminated trans fat from the Oreo. This lawsuit instantly catapulted the trans fat issue into the public's consciousness. Joseph was mocked, threatened, and villified for his "frivilous" lawsuit. As doctors and scientists began to dive into the health consequences of trans fat, it became evident that trans fat did have a direct correlation to heart disease. Kraft must have realized the potential public relations disaster this lawsuit would create, and decided to take the high road. Kraft elected to take the initative and removed trans fat from the Oreo. By December 20, 2005 Kraft announced that it had eliminated trans fat from 650 of its products, leaving less than 2.5% of its products requiring an FDA label warning of the use of trans fat.

In 2004, Joseph led the initiative to ban the use of trans fat in restaurants in Tiburon. Why Tiburon? Perhaps because Stephen Joseph moved to Tiburon in 2003. So what can a ban of trans fat in a city with 18 restaurants do? Quite a bit is seems. After reading about the Tiburon city ban, Joseph received a call from a city official with a few more restaurants than Tiburon. New York City officials called Joseph to see if he might be able to institute a similar ban in their own little city - population 8,274,527.

The New York City trans fat ban took effect July 1, 2008. Not to be outdone, California decided to get into the discussion. Governor Arnold Swartzenegger signed the bill to ban trans fat in restaurants on July 26, 2008. The legislation takes effect July 1, 2009.

The importance of writing the legislation for the Tiburon ban by Joseph is important to understand. If he had tried to go directly to New York City of even the State of California first, the amount of time, effort, and cost he would have had to exert to get any movement would have been significant. Modeling the legislation in his home town, no matter how small, created a successful model which eventually scaled to America's most populous city and state. For those trying to change the world, a lesson can be learned. Find a receptive audience and target and work hard to develop a solution that produces a resounding success. The size of the market is less important than the impact on the target audience.