Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week from Bloomberg Radio. I'm Carol
Speaker 1: Masser and I'm Tim Stanovik. Welcome to the Bloomberg Business
Speaker 1: Week Extra. It's our weekly podcast bringing you a highlight
Speaker 1: our favorite interview from the week, and this week it's
Speaker 1: with JM. Smucker Company, President and CEO Mark Smucker and Carol,
Speaker 1: you had the chance to catch up with him, a
Speaker 1: fifth generation member of the family running the company. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's a company that's been around for more than a century.
Speaker 1: It's seen wars, depression, pandemics, oil shocks No. Eleven financial crisis,
Speaker 1: seeing women get the right to vote, seeing segregation and
Speaker 1: then the end of segregation. Yeah, I mean, listen, I
Speaker 1: love talking to companies like this, to him, because it's
Speaker 1: just they've seen so much. They've gone through crisis, they've
Speaker 1: had to adapt to changing consumers and changing marketplaces. This
Speaker 1: isn't Smucker's first pan downic. No, it isn't exactly, And
Speaker 1: that's why I wanted to talk to him. I wanted
Speaker 1: to get his perspective, especially with this current environment that
Speaker 1: feels so stressful, feels so divided, and feel so uncertain.
Speaker 1: So that's kind of where we began our conversation check
Speaker 1: it out. Can't diminish the significance of this humanitarian crisis
Speaker 1: that we all find ourselves in. But I think we
Speaker 1: do have to try to look forward to the future
Speaker 1: and think about how are we as a company helping society.
Speaker 1: How are we making society a better place. We obviously
Speaker 1: make food, we make things that are uh you know,
Speaker 1: make the consumer happy, But we also have a responsibility
Speaker 1: to the communities in which we work as well. So
Speaker 1: all of the ways that we can support through through volunteerism, obviously,
Speaker 1: UM education, feeding America, all of those things. It is
Speaker 1: a it is a dual role that we have in
Speaker 1: society today, Is it safe to say a stressful one?
Speaker 1: Because I'm curious about what your employees might be asking
Speaker 1: of you today and what you're asking of your leadership
Speaker 1: to kind of get everyone through this environment. Well, the
Speaker 1: first thing that we're asking our leadership is to number
Speaker 1: one focus. But also in focusing, we have to take
Speaker 1: care of our employees and that starts with UH mental health.
Speaker 1: We have made a significant push with our employees to
Speaker 1: make sure that they know what resources are available to them.
Speaker 1: It is a trying time, but fundamentally we have to
Speaker 1: start with keeping our own house in order, protecting our employees,
Speaker 1: which will in turn allow us to do better in business. Well,
Speaker 1: it's interesting too, you know, you say to do better
Speaker 1: in business business right now. I was talking to Richard
Speaker 1: Edelman of the PR firm Edelman and they do a
Speaker 1: trust barometer and they say that right now business was
Speaker 1: more trusted than government in eighteen of twenty seven countries.
Speaker 1: And the expectations are for ceo s to focus on
Speaker 1: societal engagement with the same rigor, thoughtfulness and energy used
Speaker 1: to deliver on profits. And I'm curious, do you are
Speaker 1: you seeing that? Do you see that now? It's kind
Speaker 1: of extra responsibilities in your role as a company, Carol.
Speaker 1: We always have taken a view again that that we
Speaker 1: do have a responsibility to society. I think what has
Speaker 1: shifted in the last five to ten years is you
Speaker 1: do see business leaders being more vocal and taking stances,
Speaker 1: not necessarily political stances, but fundamentally it's about doing what's
Speaker 1: right and so what even if we choose not to
Speaker 1: make a statement publicly, even internally with seven thousand employees,
Speaker 1: there is an expectation that we stand up for what
Speaker 1: is right, whether that's condemning violence in any form or
Speaker 1: what have you. But we we do see a desire
Speaker 1: for employees and the society at large too, to be
Speaker 1: a bit more vocal in those issues. Well, it's interesting
Speaker 1: to this whole focus mark, you know this multiple stakeholders, right,
Speaker 1: it's something that's come out, come out of the Business Roundtable.
Speaker 1: Your history, and help me if I've gotten the genealogy right.
Speaker 1: I think your grandfather and former CEO of the company,
Speaker 1: Paul Smucker, wrote a letter back in the nineteen eighties,
Speaker 1: and then I think it's your great great grandfather JM. Smucker,
Speaker 1: you know, laid out these core values, these basic beliefs,
Speaker 1: you know, about ethics and quality and people. And it's
Speaker 1: just pretty fascinating that it feels like the company in
Speaker 1: many ways was ahead of its time considering the environment
Speaker 1: we're now in, and all of a sudden everyone's talking
Speaker 1: about this. You know, it's really interesting. You said it
Speaker 1: very well. We have been focused on this for decades,
Speaker 1: for our entire existence, even when before the Business Roundtable
Speaker 1: came out. We talk about our constituencies, right, and the employees, consumers, customers, suppliers,
Speaker 1: all of them leading to shareholders and so philosophically, what
Speaker 1: we have always said is that if we take care
Speaker 1: of all of the other constituents, then automatically the shareholder
Speaker 1: will be taken care of. And that is essentially precisely
Speaker 1: what the Business Roundtable said. There's no question that social
Speaker 1: media and technology has allowed consumers access to a variety
Speaker 1: of different brands and products that they may not have
Speaker 1: had access to in the past, and so in this
Speaker 1: time when consumers do want to simplify, we have seen
Speaker 1: millions of consumers come back to the Folders franchise and
Speaker 1: we have actually seen Folders start growing again, which has
Speaker 1: been fantastic. We're helping that along with again the advertising
Speaker 1: and so forth, but specifically to innovation. It's making sure
Speaker 1: that we continue to stay relevant. We are on a
Speaker 1: multi year journey with Folders, which starts with the consumer
Speaker 1: communication um. Consumers want bolder, darker rows, so we are
Speaker 1: aiding those in a new product line called Folders No Air.
Speaker 1: It's constantly paying attention and speaking to our consumers and
Speaker 1: understanding what they want so that we can deliver that
Speaker 1: to them. And I'm very pleased with the progress we've made,
Speaker 1: so more to come. You mentioned advertising a couple of times,
Speaker 1: I'm curious about social how important is that and kind
Speaker 1: of reaching a different audience, maybe a younger audience. UM.
Speaker 1: And I'm also curious about influencers or celebrities, like how
Speaker 1: do you guys think about that? You know, take a
Speaker 1: you know, a coker, Pepsi, right, They've often aligned with
Speaker 1: a celebrity, take you know, sports, you know gear. UM.
Speaker 1: So I'm just curious how that plays into it. Sure
Speaker 1: so folders in particular as it relates to UM influencers
Speaker 1: and social across our portfolio. We have leverage those capabilities.
Speaker 1: Keeping these consumers in the franchise is largely ab out targeting.
Speaker 1: It's knowing which consumers are new and trying to push
Speaker 1: push messaging to them through the social channels. UM. In
Speaker 1: terms of celebrities, as you know, we are engaged with
Speaker 1: Rachel ray On Nutrition, which is our one of our
Speaker 1: leading dogs brands UM. That has been a very successful
Speaker 1: partnership with for us. We also do think about whether
Speaker 1: it's influences or celebrities. Obviously, maybe our pockets aren't as
Speaker 1: deep as some of our larger competitors, but we will
Speaker 1: continue to look at those opportunities as well. More so
Speaker 1: more to come stay tuned, all right, you'll fill us
Speaker 1: in later. Um. You know, and I especially think about
Speaker 1: your industry, right is one where winning is a game
Speaker 1: of inches, Right, it's small increments. So I'm curious, you know,
Speaker 1: how do you define and explain innovation to your team
Speaker 1: where winning is in these small increments. It's multiple things,
Speaker 1: and you're right, is a game of inches, And so
Speaker 1: it starts with focusing on the capabilities. That's just the
Speaker 1: few sets of capabilities that we need to win. So
Speaker 1: it's very simple things like at the store level, whether
Speaker 1: that's the digital shelf or the or the real you
Speaker 1: know shelf, we have to make sure that our products
Speaker 1: are on the shelf and in stock. It's something that simple.
Speaker 1: As it relates to consumers, it's how we communicate them.
Speaker 1: Things that we've already touched on in terms of making
Speaker 1: sure that we find those those new consumers and re
Speaker 1: engage with them. So it's really customer consumer building those
Speaker 1: capabilities that are focused on those two constituencies. Hey, how
Speaker 1: has digital impacted your world? They've got to ask you
Speaker 1: because that's one theme that we've talked about Mark so
Speaker 1: much over the last year. Is the digitization or further digitization,
Speaker 1: and companies that had strategies that they were maybe going
Speaker 1: to implement over the next couple of years, all of
Speaker 1: a sudden they did it overnight. How is that impacting
Speaker 1: your world? Is that part of it as well? Well? Fortunately,
Speaker 1: we were set up from an e commerce perspective. We
Speaker 1: have several key e commerce customers. We were set up
Speaker 1: well coming into this, and so we've experienced tremendous growth
Speaker 1: as consumers continue to do more shopping online. Um. The
Speaker 1: digitization that like this, this conversation that we're having is
Speaker 1: is clearly something that's new to too many of us.
Speaker 1: And then again it is it's it's a combination of reach,
Speaker 1: which is mass media, but also targeted marketing as we've
Speaker 1: discussed like social media as well. One thing that's stuck
Speaker 1: out with me and it's something I'm kind of applying
Speaker 1: to my life. But you said is how to take
Speaker 1: work out of the system. Um, And it's interesting that
Speaker 1: you talked about this, So how do you take work
Speaker 1: out of the system at Smuckers? Because right I think
Speaker 1: it had said to me. You know, in the past,
Speaker 1: you might have had a big meeting and everybody got
Speaker 1: to weigh in and you know, being all, you know,
Speaker 1: making sure everybody you know collaboration was number one, and
Speaker 1: you've taken some of that out right. We there's a
Speaker 1: few things, some of which we talked about, like the divestitures,
Speaker 1: making very conscious decisions about what's in or out of
Speaker 1: our portfolio. Um. But even in terms of how we work,
Speaker 1: we have migrated to smaller meetings. We're trying to make
Speaker 1: decisions quicker um and then you know, once the decision
Speaker 1: is made, you walk out of the quote virtual meeting
Speaker 1: and you go and you execute. So a focus on
Speaker 1: potentially smaller groups, clean, clear decisions and then action has
Speaker 1: been really key to our success during this time. How
Speaker 1: do you think you know your culture and your strategies
Speaker 1: have changed the most over the last year because of
Speaker 1: what we've all been dealing with, what you've been dealing
Speaker 1: with as head of a company, you know, I would
Speaker 1: just start by saying the keeping the core and protecting
Speaker 1: the core, as we talked about, it starts with me
Speaker 1: as a leader. UM. I think the best leaders are
Speaker 1: those who are both authentic and and vulnerable and so
Speaker 1: bringing our whole whole selves to work. I truly believe that,
Speaker 1: and that as myself the leaders on my team, holding
Speaker 1: them accountable to behave in that same way sets the
Speaker 1: foundation in terms of what's changed. It's everything that we've
Speaker 1: already talked about in in terms of being more agile,
Speaker 1: focusing and making those focused areas really stick, and not deviating,
Speaker 1: not adding work back to the system. Once we come
Speaker 1: out of this pandemic and can take take a deeper breath,
Speaker 1: how do you make sure that that happens? Because you
Speaker 1: know how it's so easy, Like everybody comes back and
Speaker 1: it's like, go, let's have a meeting, let's invite everybody. Like,
Speaker 1: how do you, as a eater make sure like, wait
Speaker 1: a minute, we've made some progress here? Well, I think again,
Speaker 1: it starts at the top. I have to model that behavior.
Speaker 1: My team has to model that behavior. Um, and we
Speaker 1: will do that. It's interesting how many conversations that we've
Speaker 1: had just with my own executive team on ensuring that
Speaker 1: we continue this behavior coming out of the pandemic. So
Speaker 1: i'd be in this we are bloomberg, UM, tell me
Speaker 1: coming out of the pandemic? Is it this year? What
Speaker 1: kind of visibility do you feel like you have about
Speaker 1: what the outlook looks like and for your business we
Speaker 1: feel really good. I think the changes that we have
Speaker 1: been able to make under the cover of the pandemic
Speaker 1: have really set us up for success. Um. We've talked
Speaker 1: about many of those things, whether it's agility, innovation, UM,
Speaker 1: but focusing on maintaining our culture. I really do believe
Speaker 1: that we the fundamentals are the air, and we will
Speaker 1: continue to grow our business off of this new base.
Speaker 1: All right, And I gotta ask you the one thing though,
Speaker 1: that puts a little bit on edge, makes a little
Speaker 1: anxious going forward. What makes me anxious? Yeah? Yeah, Um,
Speaker 1: you know, I think one thing that always keeps us
Speaker 1: up at night is our competition. We have fantastic competitors
Speaker 1: in this industry, and we are keen to observe them
Speaker 1: and learn from them as well. So, UM, responding to
Speaker 1: some of our competitive threats is something that we take
Speaker 1: very seriously. I think beyond that, we would like to
Speaker 1: all see a world where, um, there is mutual respect
Speaker 1: across the board for every human being. And I look
Speaker 1: forward to a better world coming out of this pandemic.
Speaker 1: That was jam Smucker Company president and cel Mark Smucker,
Speaker 1: and I caught up with him Tim at a Bloomberg
Speaker 1: breakaway event, It's was really talking about innovation and culture,
Speaker 1: and so I love these companies that have been around,
Speaker 1: this one for almost a hundred and twenty five years, Like,
Speaker 1: what's innovation and culture to a company that kind of
Speaker 1: lives in small increments? Right in terms of how they
Speaker 1: changed their products. I mean, a company that's been around
Speaker 1: for hundred twenty five years, though they've had to innovate.
Speaker 1: I mean, just think about it, not just ingredients, but packaging,
Speaker 1: changing consumer taste. The list just goes on and on.
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Speaker 1: and more. I'm Carol Masser and I'm Tim Stovik. This
Speaker 1: is Bloomberg