Driving Sustainable Growth in the Evolving Food Industry with Wendy Jean Bennett

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:00:00

It's interesting people ask me what I

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:00:02

value the most. I value the influence I have on the company

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:00:06

to be able to make it a better company every day I wake up of

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:00:09

how can I make this company better, and help drive this

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:00:12

organization.

Brent Williams: 00:00:14

Welcome to the be epic podcast brought to you

Brent Williams: 00:00:17

by the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of

Brent Williams: 00:00:20

Arkansas. I'm your host, Brent Williams. Together, we'll

Brent Williams: 00:00:25

explore the dynamic landscape of business and uncover the

Brent Williams: 00:00:28

strategies, insights and stories that drive business today. All

Brent Williams: 00:00:33

right, well, today I have with me Wendy Jean Bennett, from

Brent Williams: 00:00:37

Tyson Foods. Wendy Jean is the vice president of retail

Brent Williams: 00:00:42

commerce leadership at Tyson Foods. Wendy, thank you for

Brent Williams: 00:00:46

joining me.

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:00:46

I'm so happy to be here. Brent. This is

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:00:48

fantastic.

Brent Williams: 00:00:49

It is. I'm excited to have you here. You

Brent Williams: 00:00:51

know, in your role, I think you have category leadership, I

Brent Williams: 00:00:56

think insights, e commerce, shopper marketing, and and

Brent Williams: 00:01:02

you've gotten a really varied set of experiences mostly in

Brent Williams: 00:01:06

food. So 30 years in the food industry, most of that at Tyson

Brent Williams: 00:01:12

I think so. And I thought what was really interesting is maybe

Brent Williams: 00:01:16

going all the way back to the early part of your career, I

Brent Williams: 00:01:18

think you're in food service at a university?

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:01:20

The old days. Yes yes.

Brent Williams: 00:01:22

So quite a career thus far. Tell me more.

Brent Williams: 00:01:26

Tell me more about your current role and would love to learn a

Brent Williams: 00:01:29

little bit about from your viewpoint like what did that

Brent Williams: 00:01:31

journey look like?

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:01:32

Absolutely. I think it's important to

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:01:32

understand people's journeys, at least from a business lens and

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:01:35

sense and a career development, which I think is critically

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:01:39

important. So currently, you nail it on the head, I have four

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:01:42

disciplines, all on the retail side of the business, retail,

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:01:46

meaning grocery mass retailers also includes dollar, drug, club

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:01:51

channels. So all those channels of business on the retail side,

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:01:54

it is category management, which is a great discipline, we are

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:01:58

the advisor for many of the retailers we work with. So we do

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:02:02

share and we look at the growth and what's happening in that

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:02:05

category and deliver insights to those retailers. There's

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:02:09

actually a firewall you might not know that, but with a lot of

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:02:11

retailers, you cannot just openly talk to sales like they

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:02:15

trust us we have NDAs to be able to deliver the best category

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:02:19

advancement to help everyone grow. So that's that's the

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:02:23

largest discipline I manage. Then as you said, we have

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:02:26

insights ours is more of those insights directly related to the

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:02:30

retailers. So the big questions they're asking like right now,

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:02:33

what's going on with the consumer? What's going on with

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:02:36

snap money, government money going away? How is that going to

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:02:39

impact us in the business so our insights team really

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:02:42

concentrates. It's all primary research, so not using

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:02:45

syndicated to do that, our category team does use

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:02:49

syndicated and we do have insights people who manage our

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:02:52

syndicated tools on those sides, commerce marketing is shopper

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:02:55

marketing. You're right on we changed the name because of omni

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:02:58

channel,

Brent Williams: 00:02:59

Right

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:02:59

So now because it does include

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:03:01

ecommerce is on my team as well as shopper marketing. So we call

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:03:05

that now commerce marketing. It's everything incorporated

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:03:09

together, whether you're buying or planning offline, online when

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:03:13

you go to the store, when the conversion happens. So those

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:03:16

four disciplines is what I managed today.

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:03:18

You asked about the journey. I always knew

Brent Williams: 00:03:18

Okay.

Brent Williams: 00:03:18

I wanted to be food. So I'm going to start old old school

Brent Williams: 00:03:20

story of when you people ask, what do you want to be when you

Brent Williams: 00:03:21

grow up? Well, my number one answer was an astronaut. You

Brent Williams: 00:03:26

know, I'm old. So I was drinking Tang, and I always want to do

Brent Williams: 00:03:32

the astronaut. But number two was I wanted to be a waitress. I

Brent Williams: 00:03:36

know that's really, you know, big, big job there when you're

Brent Williams: 00:03:39

young. And all I wanted for Christmas was the little note

Brent Williams: 00:03:43

pad that they used to take orders on and one of those tear

Brent Williams: 00:03:46

pads and I got it. And so I would take your order on the

Brent Williams: 00:03:49

dinner table me my brothers, sister and family. And I would

Brent Williams: 00:03:52

even though we only had one item like you know you had only got

Brent Williams: 00:03:54

meatballs tonight. That's all you're getting. But let me take

Brent Williams: 00:03:57

your order down. And I was I always knew I wanted to be in

Brent Williams: 00:04:01

food. So food was always my journey. At that point, the best

Brent Williams: 00:04:06

schools was Cornell which we couldn't afford to go to, even

Brent Williams: 00:04:09

with scholarships, and UNLV so interesting enough, I'm a girl

Brent Williams: 00:04:13

from New England, New Hampshire and went to Las Vegas, so not

Brent Williams: 00:04:18

smart always to go to a town that's open 24 hours when you're

Brent Williams: 00:04:23

young. But so great life experiences there but it

Brent Williams: 00:04:26

actually was a fantastic college. And you had all the

Brent Williams: 00:04:30

hotels right there that you could do internships with and

Brent Williams: 00:04:33

restaurants so you could specialize in hotel side or

Brent Williams: 00:04:36

restaurant side. I specialized in restaurants. So that's what

Brent Williams: 00:04:39

got me into the food business and I loved my first journey, as

Brent Williams: 00:04:42

you mentioned, was in colleges and university it's contract

Brent Williams: 00:04:46

management services. It used to be Marriott management services.

Brent Williams: 00:04:50

It was bought out by Sodexo. There's three big E's, Compass,

Brent Williams: 00:04:53

Aramark, and Sodexo. And so then I worked at different colleges

Brent Williams: 00:04:56

University what's so great, I love about that and what I love

Brent Williams: 00:04:59

about the university atmosphere and being here today is in

Brent Williams: 00:05:03

business, sometimes you're stuck in your internal business lens

Brent Williams: 00:05:07

world. And when I worked on campus, I mean, the students

Brent Williams: 00:05:12

would come in, and we'd have student managers and students

Brent Williams: 00:05:14

that worked with us, with us, along with full time employees.

Brent Williams: 00:05:17

And you talked about philosophy and life and things they learned

Brent Williams: 00:05:22

in class, and they want to apply it and what are the thoughts on

Brent Williams: 00:05:25

that and quantum physics and you could have such a books diverse

Brent Williams: 00:05:29

conversation, and keeps you young at the university campus

Brent Williams: 00:05:33

as opposed and gives you more diversity and inclusivity

Brent Williams: 00:05:36

honestly, from being in that perspective, and having that

Brent Williams: 00:05:39

broader lens, because I find that expanding your horizons is

Brent Williams: 00:05:44

the best thing you can do to open your thought process of how

Brent Williams: 00:05:47

you act and react to business problems in this world.

Brent Williams: 00:05:51

You know, and on that note, I think one thing

Brent Williams: 00:05:54

about the Walton College of Business that I love is the

Brent Williams: 00:05:58

interaction that occurs with industry, you know, and whether

Brent Williams: 00:06:01

it's here, whether it's out in the business community, it's

Brent Williams: 00:06:04

happening every single day

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:06:06

Every day.

Brent Williams: 00:06:07

And there's a lot of magic that happens for

Brent Williams: 00:06:09

for both. So I think it was really, I really enjoyed hearing

Brent Williams: 00:06:13

from your perspective, you know, what is the value you get from

Brent Williams: 00:06:16

interacting with universities, colleges and our students?

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:06:19

I absolutely love it. And I love that spark

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:06:24

of curiosity, nothing, you know, when you hire, you look at will

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:06:29

and skill. And I, I can teach someone, almost anything, as

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:06:33

long as they have, what they learn here, the rudimentary

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:06:36

business acumen application, and if they have the will, I'm gonna

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:06:41

hire them. So that's always what's exciting to me is that

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:06:44

spark of curiosity, and that will so I loved working in the

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:06:47

university environment, I'm gonna skip forward. And I

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:06:50

learned a lot on how to be a manager, some leadership skill

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:06:54

sets, you know, and one of the core ones I would say for

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:06:57

myself, is motivation and inspiration. I, you know, in

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:07:02

these times, and everything we just handled with the pandemic,

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:07:06

it was important to have motivation and inspiration as a

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:07:09

leader, and really dig deep and project that for your team. And

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:07:14

the second thing I learned right as I went from my 20s, to 30s,

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:07:19

was self awareness is a skill set. I swear if I have a book,

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:07:23

Brent it's gonna be one of the chapters, and how do I know

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:07:25

this, because I went and saw someone on stage, who was pinch

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:07:30

hitting for me, because I was not feeling well. And I kind of

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:07:34

had a little bit of laryngitis couldn't talk to someone who was

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:07:37

pinch hitting for me, and I'm watching him on stage. And it

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:07:40

was a peer. And, you know, it was a good, you know, thing. It

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:07:45

wasn't very, you know, it was good. You know, like when you

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:07:48

sit in the audience, and you're listening, and you're clapping

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:07:50

and doing all the right things, the right right moment, and head

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:07:53

nodding, but it really didn't blow me away. And it was good,

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:07:56

but not great. And I see people around me looking at their

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:07:59

phones. So they're not engaged. You can see it in the audience

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:08:02

when you're losing them. And then he came off, and I'm like,

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:08:05

how do you think it went, he goes, oh, I killed it. That went

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:08:08

great. I was fabulous. And I literally had that moment of oh,

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:08:13

he is completely unaware. He thinks he really did an A level

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:08:17

job. I'm a big grader. I know that's bad with school. But and

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:08:20

I'm like it was like a C and it really needed some improvement.

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:08:24

And so it's interesting because I sometimes over analyze, but

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:08:28

the second I'm done something I say how can I do that better.

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:08:31

But I also think that makes me a sharper manager for continuous

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:08:34

improvement. So that was a big lesson I learned in my 30s that

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:08:38

context and perspective are critically important. And one of

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:08:42

the most interesting classes I took at that time was body

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:08:44

language. And watching people's body language it really helped

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:08:48

me is then as you noticed in my career, I went into sales and

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:08:51

marketing. And so I'm working with our retail partners, I'm

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:08:55

working on the foodservice side, I have gone all the way to lead

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:08:59

teams, some of our key retailers, like Kroger, Meijer,

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:09:03

Target. And it was really that nothing was more important than

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:09:07

in the meeting and watching the body language of what happens.

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:09:10

And sometimes people are focused on the content they need to

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:09:13

deliver. And they're reading their slide or they're reading

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:09:16

their notes. And they're not paying attention to the dynamics

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:09:18

of the room. And I would leave and go, Oh, they're already

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:09:22

going to do something with our competitor. And they're already

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:09:24

moving forward with this because they totally pushed back a

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:09:28

little bit and showed disinterest or they're thinking

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:09:31

of that strategy. And they really liked that idea. We need

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:09:33

to follow up on that. And honestly, my directors, these

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:09:36

are leaders, these are directors would be like, wow, I didn't

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:09:38

even notice that or I didn't even catch that. And those are

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:09:41

some of the critical things that really unlock success in

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:09:45

business. And they sound very elementary, but we don't always

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:09:49

teach that as well or how to apply that and engage it in the

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:09:53

business world.

Brent Williams: 00:09:54

Yeah, that's right. And that's an onload

Brent Williams: 00:09:55

ongoing learning process. How do you as you lead teams is in

Brent Williams: 00:10:00

these four different areas of the business across sales and

Brent Williams: 00:10:03

marketing? Well, I guess how do you go uncover those needs and

Brent Williams: 00:10:09

hire hopefully to do a great job getting those skills into your

Brent Williams: 00:10:12

organization. But how do you develop people as you think

Brent Williams: 00:10:16

about those needs and across your teams?

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:10:18

Yeah, absolutely. A you gotta have

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:10:20

strong onboarding plans. And Tyson is very good at investing

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:10:24

in this and we have day long classes, people go to dow get on

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:10:28

boarded, learn about Tyson get grounded in that. And then when

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:10:31

they come to us, we just have to teach the basic functions of the

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:10:34

team and work on that. So they job shadow is critically

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:10:39

important in the process of onboarding and learning of what

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:10:43

they do to learn their skill sets. And then we luckily work

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:10:46

for a big company that invests in people. So we do have

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:10:49

different levels of investment, we partner with many we have

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:10:52

LinkedIn learning, we have Tyson University, where they learn

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:10:56

about our products, and they really get hands on with our

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:10:59

products and our stance some sort of some people who come

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:11:01

from a CPG landscape, they're not used to dealing with

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:11:04

animals, right? So it's, it's a beast, no pun intended, of

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:11:09

sometimes working with a commodity that's perishable. I

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:11:12

said, if I ever left Tyson, I'm going to a shelf stable product

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:11:16

that can last a long period of time, as opposed to something

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:11:19

that has days that it can last on shelf and you gotta get good

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:11:23

turns.

Brent Williams: 00:11:24

You know, most of our listeners know Tyson and

Brent Williams: 00:11:28

most of us as consumers know, Tyson. But tell us a little bit

Brent Williams: 00:11:33

about Tyson, sitting where you sit maybe broadly about the

Brent Williams: 00:11:36

company, and how its evolved over time.

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:11:39

Absolutely. I you know, I'll be honest,

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:11:41

Tyson was a five year plan for me. When I came I it was my

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:11:45

first exposure to Arkansas. So I said, not sure, this was 2003,

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:11:50

it is much more developed now. And it was a five year plan just

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:11:54

for me to get it was my first manufacturer because I'd work on

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:11:57

the other side of the customer side of the business beforehand,

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:12:00

so but the family it's really does treat you like family. And

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:12:05

I came from an organization where the leaders had their own

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:12:08

keycard to get to the 14th floor, so you don't even have

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:12:12

access to them. You would not even see them unless it was a

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:12:15

special meeting. And literally, I was with Donnie King yesterday

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:12:18

in our cafeteria eating lunch. I mean, that's how unassuming

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:12:22

servant leadership it is. You can see anyone in the hallways

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:12:26

at any time you can open door policy go and talk to them. So

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:12:30

the reason I'm still am with Tyson, by far, it's interesting.

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:12:34

People ask me what I value the most. I value the influence I

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:12:38

have on the company to be able to make it a better company

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:12:41

every day I wake up of how can I make this company better, and

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:12:44

help drive this organization and the influence I have the

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:12:47

organizations that yes, I love all the jobs I've had, if like

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:12:51

you said, I've had probably eight jobs at Tyson. And they've

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:12:55

been great. But I really loved having a seat at the table and

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:12:59

just being able to influence more than anything of where

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:13:02

we're going and being able to talk to our leaders and then

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:13:05

talk to everyone. I mentor, you know, eight or nine people on a

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:13:08

regular basis, because that's so important, as you said, to grow

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:13:11

and develop our talent, and make sure to convey and teach them

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:13:17

how to be a leader. And I think that's the hardest step in

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:13:20

anyone's career is going from an individual contributor to now a

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:13:25

leader of other people, because you're used to doing it your way

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:13:29

and this and so then you have those people that overly

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:13:31

micromanage and want to see it done their way. Or you have

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:13:35

people that are so so hands off because they don't know how to

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:13:38

approach coaching, which is a whole nother skill set you have

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:13:42

to learn when you step into that leader role of I always say one

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:13:47

of the lessons I learned, which I really love is there's a lot

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:13:50

of leader, you learn from the worst, right? You learn from

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:13:53

some of your worst leaders. And I used to have a big clock

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:13:55

watcher, and at Tyson we all get up early we're there for the

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:13:59

most, I know it's like an eight to five. But for the most part

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:14:02

we're there in the seven o'clock hour. And he used to like watch

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:14:05

the clock. And so one of the greatest things I learned from

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:14:08

reading, and another great HR manager was measured output, not

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:14:14

input. And so I really love that lesson. And I always try to do

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:14:18

it with my team. I'm not gonna sit here and watch the clock, I

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:14:21

need to know if the scope of your role is is busy enough or

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:14:25

too much and you need more headcount to help do what we

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:14:29

need to do in order to be successful as an organization.

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:14:31

That's my job. And then my other biggest job is remove the

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:14:34

barrier. In any organization of life. There's some red tape or

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:14:39

there's some no's and it's great to get a no, I tell my team all

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:14:42

the time you want the no, because no just means not. Now,

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:14:46

it's not the right timing. Timing is so much of it, right?

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:14:49

We just had terrible second quarter earnings. So yes, we're

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:14:52

a little tightening the belt a little bit. But we're still so

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:14:56

optimistic about our future and you know, the markets are

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:14:59

turning, we're getting there, we're already have moved the

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:15:02

needle. So it's so optimistic of that future. And Donnie King

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:15:05

feels that way too. So don't get stuck or mired down in the

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:15:09

moment and make sure we're shooting for that vision.

Brent Williams: 00:15:11

Yeah. Well, you know, I guess, speaking of

Brent Williams: 00:15:15

vision, and the future maybe, one thing that I thought it was

Brent Williams: 00:15:18

so interesting just a moment ago, you said, this all started

Brent Williams: 00:15:23

with a passion for food, even as a child, you loved it, and you

Brent Williams: 00:15:26

love serving food to your family. Food, and the industry

Brent Williams: 00:15:32

is something we can all relate to, but it is evolving.

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:15:35

Absolutely.

Brent Williams: 00:15:35

So I'd love to hear your view on how you see

Brent Williams: 00:15:38

the whole industry evolving, and then maybe, maybe commenting a

Brent Williams: 00:15:42

little bit on how you see the consumer evolving as it relates

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:15:45

Absolutely, yeah, it's so funny. Pre

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:15:45

to that.

Brent Williams: 00:15:47

Interesting

Brent Williams: 00:15:48

pandemic, it's like cooking is dead. No one even knows how to

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:15:50

It's not google, not anything else. And

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:15:52

cook anymore, millennials can't cook. And then they all learned

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:15:56

not all of them. But a large majority learn during the

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:15:56

so you know, 80% of the content on your phone now is video that

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:15:59

pandemic and a lot of these home meal kits, you could have gotten

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:16:03

them really comfortable with cooking. I do see us staying

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:16:07

more in a convenient side because one of the key lessons

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:16:11

we learned and we're seeing post pandemic and I'm going to talk

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:16:15

about multiple categories, not just ours, but again, produce,

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:16:19

bag salad, pre cut vegetables, people aren't going backwards,

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:16:23

they're still purchasing those and I think that will continue

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:16:27

because they realize how how important time is and we saw

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:16:31

people make decisions of A I'm going to retire early. We saw a

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:16:35

lot of people leave the workforce or some families went

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:16:38

back to a single household income instead of dual household

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:16:42

income because they're trying to do the work life balance and

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:16:46

they really thought about their work life and what they wanted

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:16:50

to accomplish and raising their families or whatever life stage

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:16:54

you're in. But people really did get back to cooking and and

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:16:58

you're seeing it with TikTok and the trends interesting enough

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:17:02

for Gen Z 43% start their product search on TikTok.

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:17:14

we're consuming. So I when you said where do I see it going? I

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:17:18

definitely see less things like recipe cards and recipe books,

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:17:22

and us morphing into this great video content, and easy,

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:17:27

convenient ways to deliver it. And what I mean by that was the

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:17:30

feta cheese bake craze that happened on TikTok. If you heard

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:17:34

about that, but it was the whole block of cheddar and all the

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:17:36

grape tomatoes. And so it's already kind of pre portioned.

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:17:40

And I just assemble, or what we call speed scratch in order to

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:17:44

then cook it and make it so I think that will happen. The

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:17:47

other thing that I think is really exciting is when I grew

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:17:50

up, you know, get Chinese food and maybe a little Mexican, and

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:17:54

now, Thai food and Korean food. And there's such an exploration

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:17:59

of global foods coming to the market, we're finally selling

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:18:03

more dark meat than ever before in our chicken, which we

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:18:06

couldn't move at all come 10 years ago.

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:18:09

So we are seeing a proliferation of what

Brent Williams: 00:18:09

Interesting.

Brent Williams: 00:18:12

that mixes with consumers, I still think they're going to

Brent Williams: 00:18:15

want convenience, I think we're going to find ways to be

Brent Williams: 00:18:18

frictionless, like I said, seamless in the omni channel

Brent Williams: 00:18:22

right now it's very price sensitive people, not everyone,

Brent Williams: 00:18:25

but there's a group going back into stores to shop for the best

Brent Williams: 00:18:28

deal of protein because of the inflationary environment.

Brent Williams: 00:18:31

Because right now most retailers are catchweight. So it has a

Brent Williams: 00:18:34

range of the price or a maximum. And so therefore we're, you

Brent Williams: 00:18:39

know, losing a little bit of sales that way. And we got to

Brent Williams: 00:18:41

figure out how to do that. But we will, right I mean with

Brent Williams: 00:18:45

everyone's kind of scared of AI, what I'm excited about AI it's

Brent Williams: 00:18:48

going to deliver predictive analytics that we've been

Brent Williams: 00:18:50

talking about. And I'm sure the school that we I know you've

Brent Williams: 00:18:53

been talking about. I've heard it from students for quite a

Brent Williams: 00:18:56

while now. And it's finally coming to its impetus. And I

Brent Williams: 00:18:59

think that will help with so much more efficiencies and so

Brent Williams: 00:19:03

much more predictive analytics of what consumers are going to

Brent Williams: 00:19:06

do. But, you know, I still see them going to cook it's going to

Brent Williams: 00:19:09

be easier, it's going to be more convenient cuts, it's going to

Brent Williams: 00:19:13

be more global. So we're gonna see mix change on proteins. A

Brent Williams: 00:19:16

lot of people think of pork is just pork chops on the American

Brent Williams: 00:19:19

plate. And pork is the number two global cuisine in the world

Brent Williams: 00:19:23

once you get past chicken and goat if you didn't know goat's

Brent Williams: 00:19:25

to the number one protein of the world.

Brent Williams: 00:19:27

I did not.

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:19:28

You did not know that. And then so the like

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:19:32

pork is huge in the Latino culture and in Asian culture as

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:19:37

well. It's not beef, like we're big beef eaters, which is great,

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:19:41

but I just think we don't have it in the right form for them to

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:19:44

cook up a great stir fry or some of these other you know, items

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:19:49

that we're seeing out there from street tacos to tort, you know,

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:19:53

tortas, with Mexican sandwiches, and there's just this whole

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:19:56

proliferation going to happen and I'm finally starting to see

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:19:59

Indian which I'm excited because I love Indian. The first wave of

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:20:03

Indian was very polarizing because it was curries. So you

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:20:06

either love curries or hate curries. And now we're seeing

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:20:09

chicken tikka masala, which is tomato based, American palettes

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:20:12

get that and we're seeing biryanis, which are rice

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:20:15

flavored dishes. So I think we're going to see a lot more

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:20:18

global cuisine in the palette, which I think is exciting. We're

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:20:22

still seeing people travel, even though, you know, people are

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:20:25

tightening the belt there. They didn't travel during the

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:20:28

pandemic. So travel is really still big right now on people's

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:20:32

minds and getting out there for summer vacation. So I think

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:20:36

we're gonna see that product mix shift, but I think that's

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:20:38

exciting. I think we're well poised. I think it's funny. And

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:20:42

you might not know this, you know, this, but when people

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:20:44

think protein, they think of cereal, because it's called out

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:20:47

on cereal that, you know, there's so many grams of

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:20:49

protein. And we're the OG protein people like chicken,

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:20:53

beef and pork, like, it's the original protein. So I think

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:20:57

people forget that. So we're going to a lot of call outs and

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:21:00

protein if you've looked at any of our packages lately.

Brent Williams: 00:21:02

Yeah. Well, I think I think what's so

Brent Williams: 00:21:04

interesting about everything you're talking about is it's

Brent Williams: 00:21:07

giving you your team Tyson, really an opportunity to deliver

Brent Williams: 00:21:11

more value to the consumer, right. And that is either you're

Brent Williams: 00:21:15

saving them time, or you're opening us up to new experiences

Brent Williams: 00:21:19

that we might not have gotten without without your products.

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:21:23

Yeah, and the culinary part, just like you

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:21:25

said, is a passion for me. That's one of the things I loved

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:21:29

working on the foodservice side is working with our top chain

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:21:32

customers like Chipotle, they're a customers of ours or potbelly

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:21:36

sandwich works, if you're aware of them in the Midwest, and

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:21:39

developing specific products for them to use in their formats.

Brent Williams: 00:21:41

You know throughout your career, you

Brent Williams: 00:21:43

And they all have different cooking platforms like we have

Brent Williams: 00:21:46

stoves or a lot of us now have air fryers. That's the other

Brent Williams: 00:21:49

thing, it kind of surpassed instapot. So we're doing a lot

Brent Williams: 00:21:53

of things that work in the air fryer. So but from a culinary

Brent Williams: 00:21:56

lens, it's really exciting to see the next proliferation of

Brent Williams: 00:22:00

where's Jimmy Dean going, where are we gonna go with State Fair

Brent Williams: 00:22:03

for snacking, we're gonna go with our anchor, Tyson brands.

Brent Williams: 00:22:07

So there's some great ideas in the pipeline that are going to

Brent Williams: 00:22:10

be pretty exciting.

Brent Williams: 00:22:13

mentioned some companies you've worked with, you've worked with

Brent Williams: 00:22:15

lots of large retailers over your career, you know, and it's,

Brent Williams: 00:22:20

it's collectively that you know, a producer, you know, in a brand

Brent Williams: 00:22:25

company like Tyson and retailer together, they're coming

Brent Williams: 00:22:30

together to deliver that product and value to the consumer. So

Brent Williams: 00:22:34

how do you think about building relationships with those with

Brent Williams: 00:22:38

with your customers, ultimately, to serve the consumer? And how

Brent Williams: 00:22:43

do you do that sustainably?

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:22:44

Yeah, absolutely. Well, the first step

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:22:47

in all the consumer work, and even working with retailers

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:22:50

outside in approach. So where I see some companies fail is an

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:22:54

inside out approach, like this is the, you know, this is the

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:22:58

product I have, and this is the capacity of chicken I have. And

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:23:02

I'm going to force that instead of saying what is this retailer

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:23:06

strategy, which they will provide to you, especially when

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:23:09

you're a partner like Tyson is. And what are they? What is their

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:23:12

vision for the next three or five years? And then looking at

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:23:15

that, and making almost like a Venn diagram of where do we both

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:23:19

correlate, a lot of retailers right now we're really big on

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:23:22

sustainability. And we have made huge strides under John Randal

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:23:25

Tyson, on sustainability. In fact, in the cantar rankings,

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:23:30

that was the were in the top 10. For the first time ever Tyson

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:23:33

is, I mean, it's always been

Brent Williams: 00:23:34

Congratulations on that.

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:23:35

Thank you Kraft. We're, we're in the top

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:23:38

10 for the first time category, my team sustainability moved 22

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:23:41

spots. And the differences just giving a quick grounding is we

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:23:45

used to do just what we can directly influence, a lot of

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:23:48

animal welfare things that community that we're involved

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:23:52

in, that we can impact. And John took it to things we can

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:23:55

influence. So growing corn, right, we don't grow corn,

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:23:58

farmers grow corn, and then it's harvested, and we make it for

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:24:02

our feed that we give to our chickens, for example. So you

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:24:06

know, we are now influencers to help with green gas emissions,

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:24:09

helping reduce deforestation, helping with corn growing and

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:24:13

better soil and landscaping. So we hadn't had that before. So

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:24:16

that was significant. For we've been part of the global climate

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:24:20

change and going to global forums in Europe. So it's been

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:24:23

very evolved from that standpoint, but our retailers

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:24:27

really care about that, too. Consumers want sustainability.

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:24:30

They want sustainable packaging. It's been the number one thing

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:24:34

we've heard on retailers lips this this year. So in that Venn

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:24:37

diagram, we find the places where we align typically its

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:24:41

sustainability and innovation, our corporate responsibility and

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:24:45

the values you have to click connect on that level of

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:24:48

understanding the integrity of what you both are and then have

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:24:51

that transparency and create that partnership where you can

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:24:55

have that transparency to then evolve and create these growth

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:24:59

initiatives that you can work on together. So that's like the the

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:25:02

ethos of where it really needs to stem from. Instead of being

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:25:06

like this outside in approach, like I said, it really needs to

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:25:10

come from this coordinated effort of partnerships. So the

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:25:13

best unlocks I've seen in my career is us being equally

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:25:16

transparent. And there's times when some retailers can be just

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:25:20

very guarded, you know, and it's, they're not really letting

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:25:24

you in and try to do that. And then I've seen the other end of

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:25:27

the spectrum where we created great strategies for them to

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:25:31

grow their business. And then they didn't love our price. And

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:25:34

so they went and executed that strategy with somebody else,

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:25:38

which isn't really what you want. But you know, and then

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:25:41

luckily, there's always like the leadership, when you have your

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:25:45

top to tops that you can go, come on, now, we're delivering a

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:25:49

lot of value to you, let's make sure we're partnering. But for

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:25:52

the most part, I've had really good luck with some really good

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:25:56

partners. I mean, Walmart is the cornerstone here has been an

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:26:00

excellent partner through the years, and we've done so much

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:26:03

together, working, you know, me, specifically, on deli, and most

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:26:07

recently, with David Baskin's team, I mean, you know, just

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:26:10

trying to grow and figure out what we're going to do together

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:26:14

and how to unlock growth. I mean, people just think that the

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:26:17

Walmart beef, which we supply for them, even though it's

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:26:21

private label, we're one of their suppliers. They don't even

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:26:24

think it comes from the US when you ask those consumers they

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:26:28

think it's Mexico or somewhere else. And they don't even

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:26:31

realize the quality it's you know, upper to their choice.

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:26:35

It's high quality product that is on the shelves people can get

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:26:38

every day. And they're now working on rebranding. If you've

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:26:42

seen local stores there, it's American farmers and and they

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:26:45

are labeling the product and but we work really well with those

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:26:49

customers Meijer, Target and Kroger, my others, we all found

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:26:53

ways to unlock and drive success. But it does ebb and

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:26:56

flow. And it's hard when you have leadership churn, I would

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:26:59

say that's the hardest thing I've learned through the years

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:27:03

because sometimes you're back to square one, or maybe square two,

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:27:07

but you have to like re onboard everyone, so and you lose some

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:27:10

of that momentum. So there's been many times where I've been

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:27:14

close to the brass ring, and we're gonna close a great deal.

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:27:18

And we're all aligned, and then you know, something happens. And

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:27:21

then you get out, of course, correct and drive from there.

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:27:25

But I've also been grateful enough to experience some really

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:27:28

good wins, and some really good partnerships along the line. But

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:27:32

like I said, I think too many times I hear from retailers,

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:27:36

people are pushing this widget, like, Oh, here's this bottle of

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:27:39

water, like I'm gonna, this is why you need this bottled water

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:27:43

Brent. It's the best bottle water and I know there's Fiji

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:27:46

and polar, it's springs. But this bottle of water is really

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:27:50

going to drive your sales. And when you just, you know,

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:27:53

everyone can talk about features benefits, I laugh because every

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:27:57

single vendor spire in the world is number one, it's something

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:28:01

their generic decks will say, where I got the number one brand

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:28:04

or word number one in frozen, grocery, you know, vegetable,

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:28:08

this. And so everyone finds the thing that they can raise the

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:28:12

number one and I have found in my experience, that's nice. But

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:28:15

it's not always what your retail partner is really looking for in

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:28:19

order to drive growth in a category.

Brent Williams: 00:28:21

And when you look at driving growth in a

Brent Williams: 00:28:24

category with two big companies trying to get alignment and

Brent Williams: 00:28:28

drive that growth to meet the consumers need. Talk a little

Brent Williams: 00:28:32

bit about you know kind of mention this with leadership

Brent Williams: 00:28:35

change potentially can disrupt that. Talk a little bit about

Brent Williams: 00:28:38

the role of building personal relationships to to create

Brent Williams: 00:28:42

momentum.

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:28:43

Yeah, um, well, it's difficult. And

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:28:46

Walmart doesn't allow that. So you're not able to do that,

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:28:48

other retailers you are. So you are able to develop that. It's

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:28:54

interesting that you say that, I'm not going to talk about

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:28:56

myself, I think I'm old school or and I've learned, I came from

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:29:01

a very sociable family. So we always debated at the dinner

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:29:05

table and you know people don't do that anymore. My father

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:29:07

wanted us to know math. So quizzes us at math and wanted us

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:29:11

to debate because in his mind debate was not a four letter

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:29:14

word. And he wanted us to have a point of view on things. So I

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:29:17

really appreciate that I learned that, what I find nowadays is

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:29:22

I'm training and onboarding and working with people and we were

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:29:25

talking about coaching and development. I'm, I'm not seeing

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:29:29

that like confidence and that point of view. come across and

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:29:34

so when you said when leadership and things aren't going your

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:29:38

way. The word I'm thinking of is they tend to cower and and not

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:29:45

be resilient I guess is that word and so it's really standing

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:29:49

your ground and teaching that resiliency because you're gonna

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:29:52

get knocked down you're gonna learn lessons from that knocked

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:29:55

down but you do lose a lot of momentum. When you do have a

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:29:59

change. Wait, like I said, what you have to do is depending on

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:30:02

what level it is, is use the people, whatever, let's say it's

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:30:06

a VP of a certain account was gone. So you have to use the

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:30:11

merchants at the lower levels to help say, this is what we're

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:30:15

working on, and it had a lot of momentum. And then you have to

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:30:17

make sure to connect to the level above with our like our

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:30:20

chief customer officer, Jason Nickel. And make sure to bridge

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:30:25

that very quickly. So you don't lose that momentum. Does that

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:30:28

make sense? Does that answer your question?

Brent Williams: 00:30:30

You certainly did. You know, one thing I was

Brent Williams: 00:30:32

thinking about what we've been talking about retail, and in

Brent Williams: 00:30:37

your connection into retail, when you think about retail, and

Brent Williams: 00:30:41

how quickly it's been changing, I mean, there's an omni channel

Brent Williams: 00:30:44

transformation that's been happening as a, as a producer,

Brent Williams: 00:30:49

and as an a group of brands. How do you think about that? And how

Brent Williams: 00:30:53

is that affecting you? How do you how do you set a strategy

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:30:56

First of all, it's absolutely impacting

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:30:56

for that?

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:30:58

us, let me be crystal clear. It's it, let me let me tell you

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:31:02

where it was easy and where it's hard. And it's definitely

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:31:06

ongoing. So we did instantly set a strategy, we're a little bit

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:31:10

late to the game, but not very, it was about four years ago,

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:31:13

Yeah, I think this, my, this numbers a bit old, it's probably

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:31:13

four or five, we already had, I'm gonna say some base,

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:31:17

pictures and images and content and for all of our CPG, like a

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:31:21

ballpark a Jimmy Dean, all of that is going to have all that

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:31:25

basic information, because we have excellent brand marketers

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:31:28

who are going to ensure who see the evolving world happen, where

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:31:32

we were stumbling a bit, and we've quickly caught up is on

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:31:36

fresh images. So again, we sell Tyson tray pack, poultry, and we

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:31:40

sell as I was saying fresh meat. And so Walmart expects us to

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:31:44

have the images for all the products we do that are even in

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:31:48

private label. So that was the gap that we had a quickly closed

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:31:52

and we are still closing. And then there's been evolution,

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:31:56

even if you look online. So at first, you'd see like, this ugly

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:32:00

picture of meat in this like foam tray. And you're like not

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:32:03

very attractive. And now so then it's like, well, let's have a

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:32:07

hero picture of the cut of meat and then or the raw cut of meat

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:32:08

a year old. But the last time I looked there was over 600 retail

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:32:11

and nice put your block next to the package. And now they're

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:32:15

even evolving more of their kind of 3d ish. So if you've seen the

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:32:19

latest and greatest images out there, they're very 3d, you can

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:32:23

see that size more I'm sure we've all done this where you

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:32:27

think, oh, I was thinking I was getting maybe a 12 ounce, and it

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:32:31

comes 32 ounce, like you couldn't tell the pack size that

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:32:34

you were getting from an online commerce. So you have to build

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:32:38

structure, you have to build process, you have to work with

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:32:42

partner agencies to take pictures, do all the work, do

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:32:46

all the content. And then search is so huge in that world, you

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:32:50

need to have the right taglines key words to pop in the

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:32:53

algorithms. So literally, we have experts that literally work

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:32:57

on that for our entire portfolio, working to make sure

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:33:00

we're relevant because you have to be relevant in that space.

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:33:04

And almost every retailer, every core retailer out there now has

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:33:08

some type of retail media, they are pushing themselves. Walmart

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:33:10

media networks that had been stood up in a relatively short

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:33:12

Connect is the one locally but almost like I said, everyone has

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:33:16

one where they are saying we get this many shoppers that come

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:33:20

through, we want your brand media to be on our media

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:33:24

channels. So that's been a huge shift from six years ago, or six

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:33:28

and a half years ago. Now, when I was in what was called shopper

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:33:32

marketing. Now I'm leading our commerce marketing, that's the

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:33:36

biggest shift is the rise of those retail media networks. And

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:33:39

just making sure we all scorecard it because impressions

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:33:43

don't really sell product, right? So at the end of the day,

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:33:44

period.

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:33:44

Exactly,

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:33:47

it doesn't a click rate or, or an impression, aren't the things

Brent Williams: 00:33:47

quite a quite a phenomenon. When you when you

Brent Williams: 00:33:51

that really blow my socks off. In order for us to get more

Brent Williams: 00:33:54

sales, it has to be combined with seeing the conversion rate

Brent Williams: 00:33:58

seeing the growth happen as well, because otherwise you can

Brent Williams: 00:34:02

spend endless dollars on search, you know.

Brent Williams: 00:34:22

think about how you're going to allocate dollars, what are like

Brent Williams: 00:34:25

the core metrics and core, maybe even the core capabilities that

Brent Williams: 00:34:29

you look for amongst those returns?

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:34:31

Yeah, well A, I want to make sure their

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:34:33

score carding, so like I said, there's a lot that will say

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:34:37

we'll give you this many impressions. And like I said,

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:34:40

that's great, that's like the entry level. But we want to get

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:34:43

a little bit more sophisticated, and a little bit more robust,

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:34:47

because we want that dollar to be as effective and efficient as

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:34:51

possible for where we can spend that dollar. And we work with

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:34:54

Nielsen on MMX and so one of the big things and I could throw out

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:34:58

the challenge. Most of these retailers aren't using like a

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:35:02

third party verification like Nielsen MMX. So there our

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:35:05

scorecard numbers are different. And so we you just need to have

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:35:09

that where with all of understanding so one of the

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:35:12

things one of the guidelines we have, I haven't heard this from

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:35:15

others yet. But we say once our search and our once our share,

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:35:19

excuse me not our search, once our share hits on the omni

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:35:22

channel, the same as in store, because mostly our business is

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:35:26

still in store, we're not, we're not like Amazon or someone's

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:35:29

gone all ecommerce, it's about 11% of our total sales, right

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:35:33

now we see it going to 14. So once so that's really adequate

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:35:36

saying, once our share equals brick and mortar, okay, then

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:35:40

that's enough of that search, like we're going to turn that

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:35:43

off and go to another tactic, because we just don't think

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:35:47

we're going to proliferate more beyond that. So we've been told

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:35:50

were the one of the only suppliers that are are doing

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:35:54

that, when we talk to some of these retail media networks, but

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:35:57

it is evolving, I think Brent too, it's going to be a future.

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:36:01

You know, we're gonna need some specialists in this field. And

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:36:04

we're actually hiring for those. And it's hard to find there's a

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:36:08

lot of brand marketers it's a lot of marketing, there's a lot

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:36:12

of shopper marketing, but this is a quickly evolving just like

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:36:15

we saw with digital and E commerce when that was

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:36:18

proliferating. And now, we're seeing this as it's something in

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:36:22

the future that we're gonna have to help and work together. But

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:36:26

we were participating in a lot of them, because a lot of those

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:36:29

are great partner customers of ours, and we're doing a lot of

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:36:33

tests and learns. And I appreciate those retailers being

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:36:36

willing to do test and learn and learn together of how we can

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:36:40

make this better and enhance this process over time.

Brent Williams: 00:36:43

Absolutely. We the Walton College released a

Brent Williams: 00:36:46

white paper on sort of the, you know, the promise and the future

Brent Williams: 00:36:52

of retail media networks. And to your point about talent and

Brent Williams: 00:36:55

knowledge in this area. That was one thing we heard from our

Brent Williams: 00:36:59

interviews, that you know, there was a there's a need for the

Brent Williams: 00:37:03

development of talent

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:37:04

Yeah it's a gap.

Brent Williams: 00:37:05

and knowledge in that area.

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:37:06

And I think I haven't heard and maybe you

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:37:11

can even give me a better source of a great vision of where we

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:37:14

expect this to go. You know, it's it's a revenue stream, I

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:37:18

get the I get wanting to make sure your audience that you're

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:37:23

capturing at your local retailer, you make them privy to

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:37:28

this, and you utilize this as best as possible. But I'm not

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:37:31

sure I haven't you know what I haven't seen that like

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:37:34

frustrates me personally as a consumer, but I would love to

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:37:37

see it. We're in summer grilling phase, I'd love summer grilling

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:37:40

and grilling out. And they're not connecting some of these

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:37:44

mass channels, their household goods with food, right, like

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:37:49

I'm, I am going to need a new grill brush, a new silicone, you

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:37:54

know, slick grill brush to use with my barbecue sauce. And my

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:37:58

chicken or I might need new hot pads or towels or tongs or

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:38:01

something like that. And we're not combining it, the food

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:38:04

department is still the food department and this is still

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:38:07

that department. So you know, the whole point of omni channel

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:38:10

and frictionless buying is just that. And so don't segment how

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:38:15

you buy, if it's seasonal for that don't make it food. And I

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:38:18

think part of the issue and it happens this way at Tyson, it's

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:38:21

not throwing stones is there's individual VPs of departments

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:38:25

that roll up to this. And so there's this vision, but we

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:38:28

really haven't unlocked it because no one's willing to give

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:38:32

up their space on the platform and their pages to make this

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:38:36

kind of work.

Brent Williams: 00:38:37

Well. And, you know, I think that I don't know,

Brent Williams: 00:38:39

exactly in a vision, but I feel like what we heard and, and

Brent Williams: 00:38:40

promoted through that piece of work was really trying to remain

Brent Williams: 00:38:42

centered on the consumer, you know, if we can remain centered

Brent Williams: 00:38:54

on the needs of the consumer and creating value for that

Brent Williams: 00:38:57

consumer, ultimately the consumer is going to win and

Brent Williams: 00:39:00

then and then we're going to win.

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:39:02

Absolutely. Like I said, it always has to

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:39:05

start with the consumer. And I'm always suspicious of when it

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:39:07

doesn't, right. I'm always like, what are you selling? Right?

Brent Williams: 00:39:12

Well, we've covered a lot in in food, CPG,

Brent Williams: 00:39:15

we've talked about retail, we've talked about omni channel

Brent Williams: 00:39:19

transformation. I'm going to kind of kind of come back to

Brent Williams: 00:39:23

almost where we started, a little bit about your journey.

Brent Williams: 00:39:27

And maybe as you think about you know, as you lead teams and you

Brent Williams: 00:39:32

lead lots of teams with professionals that are building

Brent Williams: 00:39:36

their careers. What's one or two things that you look back on

Brent Williams: 00:39:38

What's going on here?

Brent Williams: 00:39:40

your career, you really learn that you think maybe gave you an

Brent Williams: 00:39:45

advantage or can give other people an advantage?

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:39:48

Oh, I love that question. The first one

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:39:50

that instantly popped to mind is a mentor. So all of my changes

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:39:54

in career, big changes so I was in the field working in college

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:39:57

and universities. And literally, I had a mentor who said, you

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:40:01

really kind of good at this marketing stuff. Have you ever

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:40:05

thought about marketing? If you've looked at my degrees

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:40:08

Hotel Restaurant Administration, I was not classically trained in

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:40:12

marketing. And I said, yeah, I do have an interest in that. And

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:40:15

he said, well, I think we have an opening, and are you willing

Brent Williams: 00:40:16

Well I feel like I heard a bit of a second one,

Brent Williams: 00:40:19

to move to our headquarter location, so I had to go from

Brent Williams: 00:40:23

the west coast to DC. And I'll give you a shot at this. So

Brent Williams: 00:40:26

mentor, having formal mentors. I think a lot of people have

Brent Williams: 00:40:30

informal mentors, but really formalize it, work at it. See

Brent Williams: 00:40:33

what areas of interest you have. Because there's one thing

Brent Williams: 00:40:37

learning at the school, the disciplines of supply chain and

Brent Williams: 00:40:40

logistics and brand marketing, and but then you get into the

Brent Williams: 00:40:44

business. And it's sometimes it can be different than what you

Brent Williams: 00:40:47

originally thought, or there might be a new evolving area,

Brent Williams: 00:40:51

right? We've, like I said, while all these new areas we pointed

Brent Williams: 00:40:55

out that didn't even exist, and like when we were going to

Brent Williams: 00:40:58

school, so it'll continue to evolve. So make sure you have a

Brent Williams: 00:41:02

good pulse on where where that lens is, the perspective of

Brent Williams: 00:41:05

business, what areas of interest you have, what mentors can help

Brent Williams: 00:41:09

you even if you have do informational interviews or

Brent Williams: 00:41:12

learning, get you connected to that, and then help coach and

Brent Williams: 00:41:16

guide you through your career. So number one, are, and it took

Brent Williams: 00:41:19

a long time, it wasn't until my 30s until I had a formal mentor.

Brent Williams: 00:41:23

So I wish I did that sooner. I wish I started saving in my 20s

Brent Williams: 00:41:27

better. And I wish I had formal mentors earlier is the first two

Brent Williams: 00:41:31

things. But that was the one thing and Paul Davis, my other

Brent Williams: 00:41:34

mentor on the Walmart team when I was on Walmart Deli. Actually,

Brent Williams: 00:41:38

I he was my mentor because he was D E and I, diversity, equity

Brent Williams: 00:41:42

and inclusion. And he said I think you should probably be

Brent Williams: 00:41:45

great at retail. And at that point, I only had foodservice.

Brent Williams: 00:41:49

He said, would you like to come on over to the Walmart team and

Brent Williams: 00:41:53

do deli because deli acts a lot like foodservice. And I said

Brent Williams: 00:41:56

sure, you know, I said yes, when those opportunities come at you.

Brent Williams: 00:42:00

And that brought me over to retail and I haven't left. So

Brent Williams: 00:42:03

those were two really pinnacle points in my career, one to

Brent Williams: 00:42:07

learn marketing and one to learn retail that were both brought to

Brent Williams: 00:42:11

me by exposure, by being part of like a business resource group

Brent Williams: 00:42:15

is where I first met Paul. So getting exposure, networking,

Brent Williams: 00:42:18

and then a mentor. And it might sound cliche, but it really does

Brent Williams: 00:42:22

work that way. So that's the first thing when you said, the

Brent Williams: 00:42:26

question that really changed some of my trajectory from that

Brent Williams: 00:42:29

perspective, and I'm trying to think beyond that.

Brent Williams: 00:42:35

which was say, yes, you've said yes to many different types of

Brent Williams: 00:42:40

challenges. And maybe they weren't always exactly linear.

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:42:44

Yeah, I am at heart, I'm a curious person.

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:42:46

We talked about curiosity, and I'm kind of a nerd. I'm like a

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:42:49

Star Wars geek and Lord of the Rings, and all those kinds of

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:42:53

sci fi and love to read still, so you know, it's the old school

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:42:56

stuff. And so I like a different challenge. So I do like to learn

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:43:00

and I like to be challenged. I'm just I knew I never wanted to be

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:43:04

a specialist at something. And I applaud everyone who does do

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:43:07

that and has expertise. And I literally am a jack of all

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:43:11

trades, master of none, because I like being able to because I

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:43:14

want to see all the parts to something to then be able to

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:43:17

have, like I mentioned that influence. But there's different

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:43:21

career paths for different people, I mentor people who are

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:43:24

experts in IT, and they are just want to be an IT field. And

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:43:28

that's what they want to do. And I completely applaud that as

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:43:31

well. So it's, you know, that's what it's about with diversity,

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:43:35

equity and inclusion is just getting exposure and making sure

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:43:38

you're helping people guide you on the right path. But just make

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:43:42

sure you're open to different experiences. And saying yes,

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:43:45

even though it has trials and tribulations, is probably some

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:43:49

of the best thing I've done in my life.

Brent Williams: 00:43:52

Well, what a great way to end. You know,

Brent Williams: 00:43:57

Wendy Jean, I must say thank you for your leadership and thank

Brent Williams: 00:44:00

you for engaging with the Walton College. Tyson Foods is a

Brent Williams: 00:44:04

wonderful partner. We have so many alums there and you hire

Brent Williams: 00:44:08

our students. We have interns there as we speak. So

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:44:12

we do you do

Brent Williams: 00:44:13

Thank you for that partnership. And thank you

Brent Williams: 00:44:17

for joining us today.

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:44:18

Well, we love the Walton College. I

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:44:21

really have enjoyed my time getting to talk to you. And heck

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:44:24

if anyone out there wants some mentoring or anything else

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:44:27

offline, WendyJeanBennett@tyson.com. So

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:44:31

please reach out or reach out on LinkedIn and can connect you.

Brent Williams: 00:44:35

Thank you so much.

Wendy Jean Bennett: 00:44:36

You're very welcome.

Brent Williams: 00:44:39

On behalf of the Walton College thank you for

Brent Williams: 00:44:42

joining us for this captivating conversation, to stay connected

Brent Williams: 00:44:45

and never miss an episode. Simply search for be epic on