Businessweek Extra- Mark Smucker

It's seen wars, depression, pandemics, oil shocks No. Eleven financial crisis, seeing women get the right to vote, seeing segregation and then the end of segregation. Yeah, I mean, listen, I love talking to companies like this, to him, because it's just they've seen so much. They've gone through crisis, they've had to adapt to changing consumers and changing marketplaces. This isn't Smucker's first pan downic. No, it isn't exactly, And

that's why I wanted to talk to him. I wanted to get his perspective, especially with this current environment that feels so stressful, feels so divided, and feel so uncertain. So that's kind of where we began our conversation check it out. Can't diminish the significance of this humanitarian crisis that we all find ourselves in. But I think we do have to try to look forward to the future and think about how are we as a company helping society.

How are we making society a better place. We obviously make food, we make things that are uh you know, make the consumer happy, But we also have a responsibility to the communities in which we work as well. So all of the ways that we can support through through volunteerism, obviously, UM education, feeding America, all of those things. It is a it is a dual role that we have in society today, Is it safe to say a stressful one?

Because I'm curious about what your employees might be asking of you today and what you're asking of your leadership to kind of get everyone through this environment. Well, the first thing that we're asking our leadership is to number one focus. But also in focusing, we have to take care of our employees and that starts with UH mental health. We have made a significant push with our employees to make sure that they know what resources are available to them.

It is a trying time, but fundamentally we have to start with keeping our own house in order, protecting our employees, which will in turn allow us to do better in business. Well, it's interesting too, you know, you say to do better in business business right now. I was talking to Richard Edelman of the PR firm Edelman and they do a trust barometer and they say that right now business was more trusted than government in eighteen of twenty seven countries.

And the expectations are for ceo s to focus on societal engagement with the same rigor, thoughtfulness and energy used to deliver on profits. And I'm curious, do you are you seeing that? Do you see that now? It's kind of extra responsibilities in your role as a company, Carol. We always have taken a view again that that we

do have a responsibility to society. I think what has shifted in the last five to ten years is you do see business leaders being more vocal and taking stances, not necessarily political stances, but fundamentally it's about doing what's right and so what even if we choose not to make a statement publicly, even internally with seven thousand employees, there is an expectation that we stand up for what is right, whether that's condemning violence in any form or

what have you. But we we do see a desire for employees and the society at large too, to be a bit more vocal in those issues. Well, it's interesting to this whole focus mark, you know this multiple stakeholders, right, it's something that's come out, come out of the Business Roundtable. Your history, and help me if I've gotten the genealogy right. I think your grandfather and former CEO of the company, Paul Smucker, wrote a letter back in the nineteen eighties,

and then I think it's your great great grandfather JM. Smucker, you know, laid out these core values, these basic beliefs, you know, about ethics and quality and people. And it's just pretty fascinating that it feels like the company in many ways was ahead of its time considering the environment we're now in, and all of a sudden everyone's talking about this. You know, it's really interesting. You said it

very well. We have been focused on this for decades, for our entire existence, even when before the Business Roundtable came out. We talk about our constituencies, right, and the employees, consumers, customers, suppliers, all of them leading to shareholders and so philosophically, what we have always said is that if we take care of all of the other constituents, then automatically the shareholder will be taken care of. And that is essentially precisely

what the Business Roundtable said. There's no question that social media and technology has allowed consumers access to a variety of different brands and products that they may not have had access to in the past, and so in this time when consumers do want to simplify, we have seen millions of consumers come back to the Folders franchise and we have actually seen Folders start growing again, which has been fantastic. We're helping that along with again the advertising

and so forth, but specifically to innovation. It's making sure that we continue to stay relevant. We are on a multi year journey with Folders, which starts with the consumer communication um. Consumers want bolder, darker rows, so we are aiding those in a new product line called Folders No Air. It's constantly paying attention and speaking to our consumers and understanding what they want so that we can deliver that to them. And I'm very pleased with the progress we've made,

so more to come. You mentioned advertising a couple of times, I'm curious about social how important is that and kind of reaching a different audience, maybe a younger audience. UM. And I'm also curious about influencers or celebrities, like how do you guys think about that? You know, take a you know, a coker, Pepsi, right, They've often aligned with a celebrity, take you know, sports, you know gear. UM.

So I'm just curious how that plays into it. Sure so folders in particular as it relates to UM influencers and social across our portfolio. We have leverage those capabilities. Keeping these consumers in the franchise is largely ab out targeting. It's knowing which consumers are new and trying to push push messaging to them through the social channels. UM. In terms of celebrities, as you know, we are engaged with Rachel ray On Nutrition, which is our one of our

leading dogs brands UM. That has been a very successful partnership with for us. We also do think about whether it's influences or celebrities. Obviously, maybe our pockets aren't as deep as some of our larger competitors, but we will continue to look at those opportunities as well. More so more to come stay tuned, all right, you'll fill us in later. Um. You know, and I especially think about your industry, right is one where winning is a game

of inches, Right, it's small increments. So I'm curious, you know, how do you define and explain innovation to your team where winning is in these small increments. It's multiple things, and you're right, is a game of inches, And so it starts with focusing on the capabilities. That's just the few sets of capabilities that we need to win. So it's very simple things like at the store level, whether that's the digital shelf or the or the real you know shelf, we have to make sure that our products

are on the shelf and in stock. It's something that simple. As it relates to consumers, it's how we communicate them. Things that we've already touched on in terms of making sure that we find those those new consumers and re engage with them. So it's really customer consumer building those capabilities that are focused on those two constituencies. Hey, how has digital impacted your world? They've got to ask you because that's one theme that we've talked about Mark so

much over the last year. Is the digitization or further digitization, and companies that had strategies that they were maybe going to implement over the next couple of years, all of a sudden they did it overnight. How is that impacting your world? Is that part of it as well? Well? Fortunately, we were set up from an e commerce perspective. We have several key e commerce customers. We were set up well coming into this, and so we've experienced tremendous growth

as consumers continue to do more shopping online. Um. The digitization that like this, this conversation that we're having is is clearly something that's new to too many of us. And then again it is it's it's a combination of reach, which is mass media, but also targeted marketing as we've discussed like social media as well. One thing that's stuck out with me and it's something I'm kind of applying to my life. But you said is how to take

work out of the system. Um, And it's interesting that you talked about this, So how do you take work out of the system at Smuckers? Because right I think it had said to me. You know, in the past, you might have had a big meeting and everybody got to weigh in and you know, being all, you know, making sure everybody you know collaboration was number one, and

you've taken some of that out right. We there's a few things, some of which we talked about, like the divestitures, making very conscious decisions about what's in or out of our portfolio. Um. But even in terms of how we work, we have migrated to smaller meetings. We're trying to make decisions quicker um and then you know, once the decision is made, you walk out of the quote virtual meeting

and you go and you execute. So a focus on potentially smaller groups, clean, clear decisions and then action has been really key to our success during this time. How do you think you know your culture and your strategies have changed the most over the last year because of what we've all been dealing with, what you've been dealing with as head of a company, you know, I would just start by saying the keeping the core and protecting the core, as we talked about, it starts with me

as a leader. UM. I think the best leaders are those who are both authentic and and vulnerable and so bringing our whole whole selves to work. I truly believe that, and that as myself the leaders on my team, holding them accountable to behave in that same way sets the foundation in terms of what's changed. It's everything that we've already talked about in in terms of being more agile, focusing and making those focused areas really stick, and not deviating,

not adding work back to the system. Once we come out of this pandemic and can take take a deeper breath, how do you make sure that that happens? Because you know how it's so easy, Like everybody comes back and it's like, go, let's have a meeting, let's invite everybody. Like, how do you, as a eater make sure like, wait a minute, we've made some progress here? Well, I think again, it starts at the top. I have to model that behavior. My team has to model that behavior. Um, and we

will do that. It's interesting how many conversations that we've had just with my own executive team on ensuring that we continue this behavior coming out of the pandemic. So i'd be in this we are bloomberg, UM, tell me coming out of the pandemic? Is it this year? What kind of visibility do you feel like you have about what the outlook looks like and for your business we feel really good. I think the changes that we have been able to make under the cover of the pandemic

have really set us up for success. Um. We've talked about many of those things, whether it's agility, innovation, UM, but focusing on maintaining our culture. I really do believe that we the fundamentals are the air, and we will continue to grow our business off of this new base. All right, And I gotta ask you the one thing though, that puts a little bit on edge, makes a little anxious going forward. What makes me anxious? Yeah? Yeah, Um, you know, I think one thing that always keeps us

up at night is our competition. We have fantastic competitors in this industry, and we are keen to observe them and learn from them as well. So, UM, responding to some of our competitive threats is something that we take very seriously. I think beyond that, we would like to all see a world where, um, there is mutual respect across the board for every human being. And I look forward to a better world coming out of this pandemic.

That was jam Smucker Company president and cel Mark Smucker, and I caught up with him Tim at a Bloomberg breakaway event, It's was really talking about innovation and culture, and so I love these companies that have been around, this one for almost a hundred and twenty five years, Like, what's innovation and culture to a company that kind of lives in small increments? Right in terms of how they

changed their products. I mean, a company that's been around for hundred twenty five years, though they've had to innovate. I mean, just think about it, not just ingredients, but packaging, changing consumer taste. The list just goes on and on. You've been listening to Bloomberg Business Week Extra, be sure to listen to our Bloomberg Business Week Daily Radio show, airing live Monday through Friday at two pm Wall Street Time on Bloomberg Radio. Watches too in our daily broadcast

on YouTube. Just searched Bloomberg Global News, and catch Tim on Bloomberg Quick Take Monday through Friday, available Bloomberg dot com, slash Qt, and streaming platforms like Roku, Apple TV, Samsung TV, and more. I'm Carol Masser and I'm Tim Stovik. This is Bloomberg