To prepare for this growth, J&B has brought in a number of senior managers with food-processing industry backgrounds. Last year, Mike Hageman began implementing a reorganization plan that breaks J&B down into four separate business units: branded products; retail distribution; production and food service sales; and third-party logistics, which provides cold storage and transportation services for outside food purveyors. A fifth department, called “shared services,” wraps around the other four units. Each unit has profit/loss responsibility, which provides J&B with a clearer sense about which activities are providing the best returns.
“J&B has been working on getting its house in order to go after accelerated growth,” says Chuck Weum, vice president for shared services and one of J&B’s recent management hires. “Mike has done two things to get us there: one, understanding the structure of the business units and what role each is going to play over the next five years; and two, understanding the business from a P&L [profit and loss] standpoint so we can make financially sound decisions.”
Growth, Weum declares, will come both organically and by means of strategic acquisitions that will expand J&B without changing its fundamental mission. Twenty-seven years ago, Bob Hageman sought to create a different kind of meat supplier from the one he left. The company takes pride in the fact that it has never had a layoff; during transitions, workers have been offered the option of retraining and staying with the company.
“The critical piece for us is to maintain our core values,” he says. “That means respectful communication and treatment of people—those that work for us as well as with customers. That’s how we started out in this business, and that’s how we are going to continue.”
