The Company’s primary business is cooking, smoking, and roasting all major proteins (pork, beef, chicken and turkey). Much of the Company’s product line is custom manufactured to meet their customers' specifications.

The Company was undergoing a transformation from being a processor of hams and bacon to a “protein” customization processor (marinating and cooking). FDP was engaged to evaluate the strategy and develop the plan to guide management through the process, and to address owner concerns regarding the core business, required capital investments and ability of current management to execute to the plan.

Working with management, FDP developed strategic and tactical plans to:

–Meet trends affecting the industry, while reflecting the Company’s heritage and knowledge base;

–Establish new product criteria before significant investments of time and capital were made;

–Form a New Products group to evaluate whether the right types of customers were being targeted, and that customization requests fit the Company’s initial knowledge, production and testing limitations;

–Formalize the criteria for pursuing new co-packing customers and opportunities;

–Restructure the sales force organization;

–Better define the role of marketing in the “new” organization; and

–Address concerns over the impact of new products on plant operations.

Management was able to convince ownership and the Board of Directors that its plan to shift focus toward the food service channel as a protein customizer was viable. 

The Company implemented the plan developed by FDP and successfully offset deteriorating sales in old-line product categories with new profitable product offerings.