A national manufacturer and distributor of lunch meats, sausage, beef sticks and other related protein products. The Company employs approximately 1,000 full time employees and operates from two production facilities.

Fort Dearborn was engaged to:  (1) perform an overall operational assessment of the business and to identify areas for improvement to increase shareholder value; and (2) prepare an Operating Plan with specific goals, strategies and tactics to enable management to execute to a formal plan and to provide ownership a mechanism for assessing management performance.

In order to reverse the decline in brand and private label sales and market share loss, FDP, in conjunction with management, developed the Operating Plan, which included strategic initiatives to:

–Develop a comprehensive promotional strategy, including adding marketing/brand development talent;

–Assess product positioning, pricing and promotion strategies;

–Pursue specialty ingredient manufacturing and new channels, including food service;

–Formalize the Company’s New Product Development process;

–Enhance the Company’s key customer relationship and gain branded product distribution;

–Establish the Company as the leader in the value brand category;

–Develop a continuous improvement strategy and culture to reduce operating expenses to offset continued pricing pressure and meat cost increases;

–Upgrade manufacturing systems and controls;

–Develop meat procurement strategies;

–Identify product formula changes to reduce costs;

–Implement a plant capital expenditure program; and

–Perform SKU rationalization reviews.

FDP helped develop strategic initiatives and tactical plans that led to over $1M in annualized cost savings, the reduction of debt and improvement in shareholder value.

The Board of Directors and the Company’s non-operating owners approved the Operating Plan as presented by FDP and management.

FDP was engaged to perform ongoing quarterly business reviews and present the findings to the Board of Directors.