How 149-year-old Campbell's Soup is 'embracing disruption': CEO
How does a 149-year-old food company known for its canned products keep its business fresh in a changing market? For Campbell’s Soup (CPB), it’s by making deals.
There are now more Millennials than Baby Boomers in the US, and the younger generation has more of a preference for fresh, natural, and organic food, according to Campbell’s Soup CEO Denise Morrison. This change coincides with economic and technological changes, she said.
“There’s been a global economic realignment [with] the shrinking middle class,” she said to Yahoo Finance while at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “People are really concerned about value and affordability of food. And then, of course, there’s the digital tsunami where consumers are connecting differently with food companies and they want to know everything about their food—where it’s grown, what’s in it, and ‘is it good for me?’”
Thus Campbell’s Soup, which built its empire on canned liquids, has been branching out by acquiring a few companies like Bolthouse Farms and Garden Fresh Gourmet.
“We’ve diversified the portfolio,” Morrison said. “We’ve added new companies that are growth engines that give us platforms for growth. And we need to keep going. We have a lot more to do.”
That also led Campbell’s Soup to put money into food startups.
“We’re seeing a lot of disruption by challenger brands,” Morrison said. “We bought a challenger brand in Plum Organic Baby Food to give us a way into Millennial parents and also observe the organic supply chain… we’ve also brought some of that learning into our core business.”
Even smaller food startups are getting Campbell’s money through its VC fund called Acre Venture Partners.
“It gives us a purview of some of the different technology disruptions [and] food disruptions, all the way from growing to last mile delivery,” Morrison said. “We get to connect with the entrepreneurs. I have people that are advising them and I’ve personally gotten engaged with them because we can learn a lot about what the entrepreneurs are thinking.”
“But also there could be some potential business partnerships,” she added. “You embrace disruption. I think it’s a good thing.”
More from Davos on Yahoo Finance:
KPMG US CEO: Every single CEO I talk to is thinking about disruption
SAP CEO Bill McDermott on machine learning and digital trends
Qualcomm Chairman Paul Jacobs on driver-less cars and the internet of things
