Hormel Foods Announces New Strategic Operating Model

Image courtesy of Hormel Foods Corporation

Hormel Foods Corporation announced a new strategic operating model, saying that it's aligning its businesses to be more agile, consumer and customer focused, and market driven. Effective Oct. 31, 2022, the beginning of fiscal 2023, the company is transitioning to three operating segments—Retail, Foodservice and International. The One Supply Chain team will continue to oversee the company's global supply chain.

"Hormel Foods is a distinctly different company than it was a decade ago, with a food forward, growth-oriented portfolio of leading brands and products that are aligned with our customer and consumer needs," says Jim Snee, chairman of the board, president and chief executive officer at Hormel Foods. "Our new operating model is a culmination of our recent strategic actions, which included numerous portfolio-building acquisitions, including the Planterssnacking business, the creation of One Supply Chain, the modernization of our technology and ecommerce capabilities, and most recently, our transformational efforts at Jennie-O Turkey Store. This new alignment will empower our 20,000 global team members, with a more refined organizational structure that is accountable, nimble and focused on creating the Hormel Foods of the future."

The new operating model will support the company's six strategic priorities:

Expand leadership in foodservice;
Protect and grow its core brands;
Aggressively develop its global presence;
Amplify scale in snacking and entertaining;
Enhance growth of its ethnic and food forward portfolios; and,
Continue to transform the company.

The company's largest operating segment—Retail— will include include the recently acquired Planters and Corn Nuts, in addition to SPAM, SKIPPY, Columbus, Applegate, Hormel Natural Choice, Jennie-O, Hormel Black Label, Herdez, WHOLLY and Justin's. This segment will be led by Deanna Brady, who will be executive vice president. Brady currently oversees the company's refrigerated foods segment.

The Retail segment will be powered by a new center of excellence called Brand Fuel. Over the last several years, the company has focused on the importance of leveraging its innovation, consumer insights and technology to enable connections with consumers where and how they shop. Brand Fuel will be a food forward hub, housing brand management, marketing and insights, and will further enable data-driven decisions for the enterprise. This center will also house the Digital Experience Group, the company's ecommerce and digital content team that supports the company's brands and businesses in the virtual marketplace.

The Foodservice operating segment will serve foodservice establishments, including restaurants, hotels, educational and health care institutions, convenience stores and entertainment venues. The company's sales into the foodservice channel have continued to experience growth due to its portfolio of branded, value-added products and market leadership positions in the pizza toppings and bacon categories. The new Foodservice operating segment will combine the company's domestic foodservice businesses and will remain focused on partnering with customers to deliver culinary solutions for today's dynamic environment. This segment will be led by Mark Ourada as group vice president of Foodservice.

The International segment will continue to focus on aggressively growing its presence outside the U.S. This includes growing global brands such as SPAM and SKIPPY, accelerating growth and investment in China, Brazil and Indonesia, and further leveraging its partnerships in the Philippines, South Korea and Europe. The company recently announced a new R&D and innovation center will be opening in China in fiscal year 2023 to serve as its food forward innovation and culinary creation hub for the Asia-Pacific region. Swen Neufeldt will continue to lead the company's international business as group vice president, president of Hormel Foods International Corporation.