Back to Nature - Balancing Mission and Margin in CPG

Rose (00:03.018)
Hi everyone. I'm Rose Hamilton, CEO of Compass Rose Ventures, where we partner with founders and operators to help brands unlock their next phase of growth. And today I'm very excited to sit down with Jennifer Jorgensen, CEO of Back to Nature, a legacy brand undergoing an ambitious transformation. What makes this conversation special is that we're not just talking about a rebrand. We're actually going super deep on what it takes to turn around an iconic company in a time of massive change.

from consumer shifts to supply chain breakdowns to the rise of GLP ones. Jennifer is leading with clarity, courage and creativity. And if you're a brand builder, operator or an investor navigating this messy middle, you're going to walk away with a lot of value from this conversation. So let's jump in. Welcome Jennifer. We're so excited to have you here on the story of a brand.

Jennifer (00:54.044)
Awesome, thank you. I love that intro.

Rose (00:57.697)
Well, let's just jump right in then. So tell us a little bit about the background of you and how you got here. And I think also what made the founding father of Nashville food stories so compelling to you and how did it guide your thinking as you were considering coming on and helping with this amazing turnaround?

Jennifer (01:20.786)
Yeah. My background is I spent almost

27 years at General Mills, really big CPG, classically trained marketer. But I started off actually in accounting and then finance before I got into marketing. So I took a little bit of a winding road to get there, but I loved the forward thinking, driving the strategy, taking the business forward and leading the team of marketing. And so once I found that, then I decided to stay put.

And I worked on a million different categories and brands at General Mills and really became known as a marketer that was like my strengths were turnarounds, which I loved, and really driving disruptive growth based on deep consumer insights. I'm really a consumer first.

marketer. And that's what I love to do. And I had a taste of international I spent six years in London, which was amazing. But I got a touch of being entrepreneurial over there. And I was running the Haagen-Dazs, which is a, you know, a couple billion dollar brand globally. And despite it being so big, it just was a little out of sight out of mind from

from headquarters and so I got to do things faster and take more risk and be more aggressive than I would have been likely back at headquarters. And as I came back to headquarters after that stint was over, I just missed that pace. I missed that entrepreneurial spirit. so I was looking around and this opportunity from Barilla came up, which was a startup, but it also

Jennifer (03:09.936)
was part of a family business, very large family business, where I didn't need to raise money. didn't need to worry about the cap table and all that kind of stuff. And I was like, it's perfect because it's a turnaround. They want to be aggressive in terms of building this business over time. But it is not all the way jumping into private equity. So it was a great sweet spot for me.

Rose (03:36.02)
What a great experience. when you jumped in, since it's an iconic brand, I'm sure the founder story part of it plays a role somehow in terms of how you think about carrying this forward and reinventing the brand. So I'd love to hear a little bit more about it.

Jennifer (03:52.562)
Yeah. Well, what's interesting is this founder story I didn't even know about when I took the role. It really had been lost for decades and decades. This brand was started in 1960 and it was, yeah, like it was early, early days of natural foods before, you know, now natural foods are very, very cool and kind of mainstream. They were not, they were very hippie. They were almost like,

alternative back then. And to be one of those early brands that was really helping to create the space and the mission and all the reasons why organic and natural foods are important as we know today, that was a lot of education and hard work back in those days. But I didn't know about any of that. I just knew that they had this brand, was positioned as plant based.

foods, back to nature of plant-based foods.

And at the time, you know, with all the plant based meats and everything was very on trend. And it really was until I got in and started digging into the brand that I realized that's probably not the most compelling positioning. And so I went in search, which I always do if I'm doing a turnaround. The first thing I do is let me go back to when the brand was founded and when it was at its heyday and let me understand what was working back then. And maybe there's a way to reinterpret it in a more

in a modern way. And that's when I discovered this like, my god, this is like a one of the founding fathers of natural foods. That's so cool. And we don't talk about that at all. And what I also learned was plant based snacking, while relevant in some categories, most consumers felt like cookies and crackers probably already were plant based. And it kind of turned people off.

Jennifer (05:53.758)
except for the really, really heavy, you you're vegan or you're really avoiding dairy for some reason, it turned the majority of consumers said, oh, that looks like it's going to taste bad. So I was like, okay, we have a nugget now where we can start to start to build something new.

Rose (06:06.582)
Yup.

Rose (06:14.71)
I love the consumer focus and the listening and really understanding and then being able to pivot very quickly. oftentimes when we're looking at any brands that are in this health and wellness space, the founding values is maybe a way I might describe it, are the pieces that a brand sometimes gets away from. And I often notice that the original founders

Jennifer (06:37.629)
Yep.

Rose (06:40.88)
usually are very consumer focused, they're customer focused. They spend a lot of time really listening as you describe. But then as a company grows 20 years into it, when the founder departs, the values oftentimes leave and walk right out the door with that founder. And so what I think is so amazing is you take the time to go in, you dust it off, you go and find it, and you really find your way back. And I think that that's an important message for folks who might be

Jennifer (07:04.914)
Yeah.

Rose (07:09.526)
working within the space is go back to those values, really understand what matters most. And I think too, I've heard you say that the brand was uncool in our conversations. And so, at some point, what signals did you see? And how did you separate noise from the signals to understand and validate that kind of an insight?

Jennifer (07:33.02)
Yeah, I mean, I think the most there's probably a couple of signals, but one that's not going to lie is your velocities. How is it turning on the shelf and our velocities needed some work?

And some were at the point where it's like, going to, had a very long tail. It's like, we're going to start to lose. And, know, when you start to lose that distribution, and especially if you lose it on the wrong skews, it starts to unwind and it's, gets to be a fairly difficult conversation with retailers. So velocities are a very important measure, but also there's just, you know,

I think sometimes marketers underestimate their own role as a consumer in the world. Like not everything has to be a test, right? And tests can be wrong too. Like there's a lot of factors that go into tests and unless everything is exactly perfect, you may not get the answer that's the right answer.

Rose (08:22.804)
interesting.

Jennifer (08:36.83)
it just looks dated. some of this, we had film, we had cartons for cookies and crackers, but film on nuts and granola. And the way it printed on the film looked almost dirty. And we had a see-through window for both of those and it looked dirty. I'm like, why would anybody buy this? It doesn't look nice. So that was another indicator. And the third and the most important indicator for me is I have two daughters. They're now

Well, one is graduated from college, one's out of college, and I have these coupons, like free coupons, and they're both poor. One lives in New York, one lives in Boston. I'm like, do you want my free coupons for free cookies and crackers? And they said no. And I'm like, why? Why? Take them, they're free. They said no. They did not want to hand them out to their friends, coworkers, anything. And what's funny is one of them was in my office this last year after we rebranded.

And she's like, well, can I take some of these back to New York with me? And I was like, these are the same things I've been trying to give you for free for the last two years. And she goes, well, now they look cool. And to me, I was like, that's exactly what this is. And it's not more complicated than that. This was a branding issue and we were turning consumers off of the brand.

Rose (09:58.102)
What I love that you're talking about here is don't underestimate the power of instinct because the operations and the data will validate that instinct and you can't lose sight of just taking a step back. And even I think about sometimes when a brand is struggling with conversion, like let's just use a website as an example. I'm shocked at how many times I'll ask, when was the last time you walked to your own store? Physically,

Jennifer (10:04.371)
Yeah.

Jennifer (10:08.083)
Yes.

Jennifer (10:12.488)
Yeah.

Jennifer (10:23.759)
Exactly.

Rose (10:24.668)
Or digitally, when was the last time you spent time doing that? And so many people get lost in the weeds and trapped in the day-to-day tactics that you lose sight of being able to take it up a level and just say, wait a minute, would I buy this? Would this resonate with me? mean, what's... Yeah.

Jennifer (10:40.606)
What is my brand experience like truly? Yeah, and it's, I think that's one of the tenants.

we're trying to live by here at Back to Nature is we need to operate like a startup, despite the fact that this is a brand from 1960 and it's already scaled, has more scale to get, but we're not fighting it out for the first million or the first 10 million. But we need to keep it small because that is how these brands win. But everyone I've brought onto this team came from Big CPG. And so it is a mindset shift of, you got to do that work yourself.

You can't delegate that or have an agency do it or somebody offshore. We have to own it like we it ourselves. And it's just a mindset shift.

Rose (11:29.118)
It really is. And when you think about how you measure success and how you know you're making a difference, and obviously sales is one way that you can measure it, but what are other pieces as you've gone through, going through the major transformation, is it just about the brand? What are the other elements that you found when you got in there? Oftentimes I'll hear, Rose, we have a marketing problem. And then I get in the door and say, wait a minute.

Jennifer (11:55.294)
Thank

Rose (11:55.37)
We actually have a people process systems problem and demand might not be our issue, but it might actually be not having inventory or having the wrong pricing. It feels to me like operationally, anytime there's a turnaround, there's usually more than one thing plaguing.

Jennifer (12:00.358)
Yeah.

Jennifer (12:09.798)
Yeah, yeah. Well, and this has been an interesting journey from me personally, because I came from, really big, really well run CPG where everything is run perfectly. And I never worried about systems. And most of the process was great. Like, I didn't worry about any of that stuff. And now I'm like, Whoa, that's the most important thing.

is getting that backbone right so that we can operate and make smart commercial choices. But as I kind of opened up this box of a new acquisition,

was like, well, we have a lot of issues here. And of course you do with an acquisition, but I would say we had really broad issues. We had this brand that felt dated. And the more I got into it, it was like, we are actively turning away consumers at the shelves. We are telling them, don't buy us, because we look like we're going to taste really bad.

So that was a big issue and it kind of got worse as we learned more. I would say that this whole like the acquisition model, you know, assumes a lot of things. They're always wrong and they're always wrong in the wrong direction. But this was worse than I thought. And as we got into into the business, I was like, well, these margins are are significantly less than we thought they were.

and there were some things not moving in the right direction. It was like, we actually have a business model issue. In addition to like my instincts were like, I got to change this brand. I didn't think I would need as much transformation on the business model. And then the last thing was I took the job as the only employee.

Jennifer (14:00.734)
When we acquired it from the company that had been running it for the last several years, they didn't really have any dedicated employees on the business. There was no one to directly pull over. Not only did I have to tire.

the entire team from scratch. I also had like no systems, no reporting, no infrastructure, no process, no pipeline of anything. And all of that had to be built from scratch, which now I'm happy for because I have a dream team, but it was not easy at the time.

Rose (14:40.372)
No, and I would imagine without the infrastructure, people process systems is probably a tougher recruiting job to be able to find people to sign on to things too, I would imagine.

Jennifer (14:44.378)
Thank

Jennifer (14:52.518)
You know, you would imagine that, it was actually, I don't know how I did it, but I was able to get the exact talent.

that I wanted because I think this excitement of you don't need to go through like the zero to whatever, 10 million like that early, early days, this thing is up and running. has so much potential and it's backed by this really large, Barilla is almost a $5 billion company that really is personally committed to success in bakery in the US and they

built a model that said, we actually want to be here in the US, so we don't want to run such a tight acquisition model that you're forced to make bad decisions. We actually want you to make smart, strategic, long-term decisions. And it was like, whoa, I've never seen a model like that. That's great. And so the opportunity to do something smaller and go for aggressive growth without taking

all of the risk for going straight into PE, think was really appealing for a lot of people that were really feeling the grind of big CPG and the slowness and some of the pains that come with that world where they wanted to be entrepreneurial, but maybe didn't want to go all the way.

Rose (16:21.716)
That makes a ton of sense. in our conversations, one thing that you've talked about is this concept of a messy middle. It's easy when you get in there, and then it gets messier in the center. And so from a leadership point of view, when you're in the scrappiness and you're really trying to move things forward and you're grinding, what does that look like as a leader on a day-to-day basis?

Jennifer (16:49.51)
Yeah, that's a great question. You know, for me, I felt like I have. Well, there's a couple of things, I guess I'd say the first is.

We have to simplify because, you know, especially that first year or even two years, it was chaos. And almost every little rock you picked up, you know, had a big problem underneath and you're like, I can't do that one today. Put that rock back down everywhere. Because again, we're building everything and it would be really easy for our team to start to spin out or everyone go in different directions and not make progress.

And so, and I felt like I've, that's one of my strengths is like really clear and focused communication. But as I've gotten into this role, I think it's gotten much, much better. but being very simple and very clear with what we need to get done, like what is going to make an impact on the business and then repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat. that

We aren't chasing every little thing and therefore not making progress. We are chasing the right things and letting some things go and know we'll get to those next quarter, next year, maybe in five years because we can't do it all well right now.

So that's something that I've really worked a lot on. The second is culture. A big thing for me is psychological safety, especially in an environment that we need aggressive change. We don't need small incremental change. We need aggressive change on the top line, on the margin, the branding. And so that means I want people to take some risks because you don't get aggressive change

Jennifer (18:42.556)
by being super safe. So true. People aren't going to take a risk if they think they're going to get yelled at or they think they're going to get fired or ridiculed or whatever.

Rose (18:43.986)
Isn't that true?

Jennifer (18:55.602)
Fairly obvious, but it's amazing how often that happens. so creating this environment where, first of all, it is a high trust environment because we all know each other. I've really, really invested in that. And I've invested in keeping it feeling as flat as possible. And we do a lot of stuff here to make this culture come to life that way. And I think we've been really successful.

at that so far. haven't had a single voluntary turnover yet, despite how crazy it's been. And then rewarding people and celebrating people for achievements and also just for learning. Maybe we learned something and it didn't go right, but hey, we learned something and we're going to do it differently next time. So I would say we've that that's been great.

Rose (19:29.756)
Wow, that's amazing.

Rose (19:50.058)
Well, and two, it gives an opportunity for someone who maybe has an entrepreneurial spirit, but does not want to take the risk of starting their own company or joining a super small startup. It's almost as though the setup there is like being an intrapreneur is what I like to call it, where you're pioneering, you're making change happen, you're applying what's happening, you're modernizing something, but you don't have the same risk of being

Jennifer (19:56.541)
Yeah.

Jennifer (20:08.026)
Yeah.

Jennifer (20:17.278)
Thanks.

Rose (20:18.354)
on your own, creating your own show. So I think that you offer something unique and special to people who join the team because they get to be, know, boots on the ground, like you're starting it up and then they get to grow and be a part of rapid-paced, learn, quick, fast, roll things out, pull things back. And so even though it may be chaotic, it also supports and offers the ability to learn a ton.

Jennifer (20:26.898)
separate.

Jennifer (20:45.02)
Yeah, exactly.

Rose (20:46.07)
careers too, which I think is so important in today's world, especially in the hybrid world of working from home versus being in an office and really sponsoring development can happen on the job. And I think that that gets forgotten about quite a bit.

Jennifer (20:58.558)
Yeah. And the way that I was able to build this team really allowed people to level up. lean, I leaned in hard on potential where if I, know, it's like someone had a reputation or, know, I had an instinct that this person really had leadership capabilities. You know, we really level people up and I'm letting them run.

and people are really happy with that level of empowerment. And they're learning something new and developing at such a rapid pace because this is a, you you're going to learn or die in an environment like this. And so it's it has been really rewarding to see.

Rose (21:43.262)
I can only imagine. And I think, as you touch on scrappiness and you think about marketing budgets, tell us a little bit about how you've gone about modernizing the mix. How do you think about the go-to-market strategy and what are you observing that's working, that's not working, things you've tried? What kind of insights might you share with us?

Jennifer (22:03.964)
Yeah. Yeah. Well, we are talking about learning. We are learning a lot on the marketing front. And we came into this business where I knew I was going to change that brand. And, of course, I didn't know how much I was going to change it. I changed it a lot. But I thought, I don't want to invest so much in building this old brand because we're going to change it. So let's not worry about top of the funnel.

Rose (22:28.029)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Jennifer (22:33.138)
big campaign driving and building equity that will be wasted. We're going to get these velocities up by going all the way to the bottom of the funnel and working there, shopper in store, know, kind of search, kind of just getting the basic fundamentals right. And like, that's not a fun place for a marketing team to be spending their time and money, but it was necessary and strategic. And that's what we did.

And we grew, you know, last year our velocities, were able to grow double digit with that strategy. So like it's working and you can target key customers and key skews. And like, we were really, really tactical with how we deployed that media.

knowing that, okay, next year, we're going to do something really fun and cool. But this year is just a necessity of where we are in the business. So it worked and it worked. This year, we've just launched new branding. So it's still rolling onto shelves now, but we're most of the way there. It launched in January and it just takes time. But now we have a brand that is super cool, is super distinctive.

and the response from consumers has been outstanding. I know we've got something we can invest in here and build like as a real asset, like this brand and the brand mark and all the little pieces we put together, we are being really strategic about how to build that brand. And we're doing it in a super.

modern way. So the mix that we're looking at now is still, you know, of course we still have some bottom of the funnel, but we've really dialed that back and we're focused more on digital, on influencers, social, and we've got some OTT, so basically streaming TV and TV updates. I think it's the first time ever we've had that type of media, like any kind of TV media on this

Rose (24:27.158)
It's amazing. Yeah.

Jennifer (24:35.464)
brand and so and it's the way we brought it to life. We really moved from functional like plant-based non-gmo like too emotional.

the joy of snacking and bringing that emotion back and tying it to this distinctive brand mark and brand world that we've created. It's going to do amazing things for our business, but we just turned it on at the beginning of the month, so I don't have any feedback yet on how it's performing. But I would say the confidence we're building from

like pick up we're getting from influencers that are unpaid, that are just picking up our brand and saying like, my God, this is so cool. Or I just tried these. Like I think some people think they're new to market. We are getting huge engagement. We just had a pop-up with Molly Baz in LA and she's so cool, but she did some recipes, comparing with us. like what we laugh about as a team is we're one of the cool kids now.

And we really didn't have the right to play in that world a year ago. And we kind of laughed like we could ask people, but they'd probably say no. And we would understand why. But now we are playing with other disruptors in the space. And that's exactly where we want to be.

Rose (26:02.838)
Well, and I think you raise a super important point, which is you can have an old dusty brand that just doesn't resonate at all. And it's almost like good news. There's many markets you haven't reached, segments of customers who don't know about you because you've gotten buried. And so there's all these new people to reach who are the cool kids who will then amplify your brand. And I think that that's what's so interesting.

Jennifer (26:22.332)
Yeah.

Jennifer (26:26.834)
Yeah, exactly.

Rose (26:31.69)
You know, in the last decade, how the influencer space has changed so dramatically and how people consume their content. depending on who your target audience is, it's channel by channel. And it's not any one thing that's going to drive your velocity. It's the combination of the organic content that you're creating and creating a content machine there. And it's not always content that the brand produces, but it's content that other people produce for you on your behalf.

Jennifer (26:59.966)
Yeah.

Rose (27:00.86)
That's where the focus really needs to be as opposed to the polished commercial that may or may not land with the right person. And so I'm so curious, OTT as a space, anything you can share with us in terms of what you're seeing? I know it's relatively new, but how are you measuring success? How do you think about it?

Jennifer (27:18.982)
Yeah, I mean, we literally like we have no data because it literally just went on air. So I wish I did, but I don't have any data. We should have a part two. Yeah, we should have a part two. Yeah.

Rose (27:26.55)
We'll have to have a part two. I think so. I think we need to do that. That would be just a lot of fun.

Jennifer (27:32.936)
But that influencer space is exactly, it's what we used to call word of mouth. Like it is so much more credible coming from someone else than from the brand talking about themselves. It's just so, it's changed so dramatically in terms of how you get that to scale.

Rose (27:50.024)
Yeah, it's really true. And when you think about the margin challenge too, and another topic that kind of goes along with it, where now you've got the right media mix, and it's organic versus paid. How do you think about a pricing model in today's world where we're faced with the tariffs and the challenges? Does that impact you very much?

Jennifer (27:51.934)
Yeah.

Jennifer (28:00.626)
Mm-hmm.

Jennifer (28:11.454)
The tariffs, you know, first of all, I probably should not be the one to comment on tariffs because they're changing daily and I, couple days ago, I was like, I just, I can't, I can't be part of this roller coaster. Right? I just, gonna wait. I'm gonna wait till it's done and then tell me what it is and you know, whatever, but.

Rose (28:22.87)
We're not alone. I can't hear them in every conversation.

Jennifer (28:32.51)
You know, we have a couple key ingredients that we're sourcing internationally. Most of our stuff is domestic. So we will have some pinch points that will be impacted. What that percentage is going to be by country like, again, I don't know. But, you know, a lot of the margin work we're working on right now is just

Rose (28:39.744)
Good luck.

Jennifer (28:55.944)
You know, as we got this acquisition in, they had, I think, 11 different manufacturing facilities for a $50 million brand. And again, this long tail. And again, we didn't have any planning systems. So the supply chain was not efficient at all. And we were really trying not to take pricing because the previous company had taken a couple rounds in quick succession prior to the acquisition and retailer

to get pissed and we started to get discontinued. And so it was like, okay, we are going to pricing, we're going to find a different way because we know we've got to work on these margins. And so we've been really aggressive at trying to find ways to take waste out of the system in all shapes and forms so that we keep our, you know, the price point is going to stay the same. But we're trying to be more efficient. And

I'm like, where do I start? But the model at the time, again, we had a long tail that we had to get rid of. So we cut, we were really aggressive at cutting skews. And a lot of it was because we're running through commands and they're going to have minimum order quantities that you have to hit. But we didn't have the scale on some of these tail skews. So you would run it and basically immediately throw away 50 % of it.

Rose (30:12.067)
yeah.

Jennifer (30:23.792)
And so it's like, no wonder the margin is terrible on that skew because we're not, we are not running this efficiently. And so we have cleaned up a lot of that stuff, adjusted them on skews we want to keep, discontinued ones where we're like, we've got no line of sight to profitability or they don't turn anyways. So let's just clean it up. But we've looked at every other element of the P &L as well.

One big play that we took was let's consolidate the sizes of the products on the shelf. We had 12 different carton sizes. So first of all, that's a really efficient, inefficient buy. But it also looks like a mess on the shelf. And we've got like, why would we be giving away, you we were price per ounce, often equal to private label. We were giving away, it just was like, no one had been managing this.

Rose (31:04.32)
Yeah.

Jennifer (31:19.454)
price point or ounces for years. And so the market moved and we never did. And all of sudden our pricing is way out of whack. And so we ended up taking

Rose (31:25.868)
my gosh.

Jennifer (31:30.426)
within cookies and crackers, we did take some ounces out of the packaging to align it to one single face panel. So it looks great on the shelf. The new branding we knew was going to look amazing as that came through. So it was a way of getting some pricing through knowing that our price points were at the right price for consumers. And in this economy, especially, we didn't want to take more pricing like car lot pricing, but doing it through

you know, through a PPA action was the smartest way to get it through. And we could combine it with, hey, we're doing this to make our margins healthier so we can invest in this new brand to drive velocities. So we had a story to pair it with as we went to the retailer, you know, and said, hang with us, hang with us. We're going to treat this business differently. We're going to start to invest in it. And they had already seen that from us. And so it wasn't just a pricing action. They were getting benefit from it as well.

Rose (32:28.7)
Isn't it so fascinating how the narrative on how you describe where you're going and being able to share the vision can preserve those relationships and those partnerships and the lack of communication will go the opposite direction. It's almost like you can't communicate enough to really build the partnerships and the relationships. And at such a localized level, as well as at

Jennifer (32:43.123)
Yeah.

Jennifer (32:47.624)
Right.

Rose (32:56.51)
At a larger level, there's just a lot to communicate when you're going through a reinvention.

Jennifer (33:01.17)
Yeah, exactly. And we were walking into some relationships that really had not been tended to very well for quite a while. And we had a lot of repairing to do with our customers. we actually, in terms of what I talked about earlier, simplifying, we just said the first year is about reestablishing credibility.

We're going to do what we say we're going to do. If we tell them something's going to launch, it's going to launch on time. we, you know, here's, here's where we're going to spend and then we're going to spend it. Like we just need, we're going to service like this. The service had been terrible. and so we're going to hit this percentage service and we had to hit it. And we did that. And, last year, Whole Foods gave us the only strategic partnership and all of cookies and crackers went to us and we were like,

Oh gosh, like this is working, but they were with us on the vision of where we want to take the brand and they remember the brand being really a staple of their snacking, you know, their cookies and crackers business and they...

They want us to be back there where we were. so they were really happy. Now, again, there's a lot we got to do to keep them happy. But we know how important that relationship is. they see the potential in our business. And we're willing to hang with us while we work through this transition. So you're right about that communication. Those relationships are so important. And investing and delivering on what you say you're going to do is

super important.

Rose (34:33.942)
my gosh, is it ever so crucial? You know, and I think given the background that you have of being in turnarounds, I'm so curious to know what advice would you give? What are the top three things you'd give to somebody walking into a turnaround situation to get done in like the first 90 days? What does your playbook look like?

Jennifer (34:54.718)
Oh, yeah. I think first and foremost, you have to declare it as a turnaround because it's probably not something you should assume that everyone thinks you're at turnaround mode. Often people don't or it hasn't, you know, there's a tendency to only communicate rosiness and perfection. if you don't clarify, no, this is actually where we are, the warts and all.

people may not understand why you need to make a change and humans don't like change. so again, to open people up to making a change, I think you need to just reestablish that baseline of, we're in turnaround mode. And here's why, here's all the facts. I think that's the most important and often overlooked. I remember one business I was on, I knew it was a turnaround, but I don't think everyone else did. And I went into...

I think I was a new manager at the time and I went to every member of the leadership team and I said, can you tell me what is going on with this business? Why isn't XYZ working? But every member of that team gave me a different answer.

And I was like, okay, I'm never gonna fix this problem because they all think the problem's different. And so they'll never acknowledge it was fixed if, you know, I don't address their piece. you've got to get them on, whoever your stakeholders are, whether it's a board or, you know, your internal, you've got to get people aligned. It is a turnaround and these are the problems. And then it's almost like, it's not easy. Like the work is hard, but that,

That alignment piece is the hardest and you have to figure out yourself what is that challenge. And then what we talked about before is like going back to either the origins or like when was this brand really humming and what were they doing that works so well? And often there's a nugget there and it's not a like copy paste because again, what they were doing in 1960 is probably not what we were doing today, but there's always learning there.

Jennifer (37:03.806)
and then simplify because there's, you know, it's...

People need to feel like they're winning and so you need to define what winning looks like for your team and you can't do it all at once. So like how do you simplify it's two or three things this year, it's two or three things next year and remind them this is the zone we're in. This year we're just building credibility so it's okay if XYZ isn't working because we're building credibility. Next year we're re-establishing the base and so we're getting healthier on velocities. We're gonna build this brand that we can't wait to launch, blah, blah.

And this year, we're going to ignite growth. And just by pacing people through it, they don't feel overwhelmed or like their work isn't meaningful because they know which chapter they're in. And I think keeping people calm, keeping the momentum focused, and making sure people feel like, OK, what we're doing is working is super important.

Rose (38:02.678)
And I think you touch on another very important factor in there, which is if you've got a team and everybody has a different set of priorities, they're all working on different things, that causes chaos. But if there's very clear focus, the critical few, and you clear the clutter, and the moment clutter shows up, people aren't afraid to bring it up and say, hey, how does this fit into what we all agreed on?

Jennifer (38:14.706)
Mm.

Rose (38:26.506)
Then you're going to be stuck with continued chaos, burnt out people, people who leave that want to resign because they're unhappy, because they feel like their work, they can just, work is never done. And then the other part that you touched on that I think is important is you could have some real gems in a business, like serious gems who, because they're getting every day nailed with something new coming down their path, they may desperately want to work on what's critical, like...

organizing the portfolio products as an example, skew rationalization and going through cleaning up pricing. But if every day is chaos and drama of some sort, you can't ever do the deep work that will actually make the impact in the long-term. And so I just think it's so important as you're describing it that like simplifying, you have to do it. And then holding people accountable to those critical few is important too. And then everybody can feel like they really matter.

and everyone's rowing in the same direction. And it can be entrepreneurial. can be a turnaround that's entrepreneurial. And I think that that's not a topic that's talked about very much. Usually a turnaround is slow moving and it's not what people think. But my experience, and it sounds like yours is too, is that a turnaround needs to turn around by becoming more entrepreneurial because they're lost somewhere back there. So you got to move quickly to be able to seize the opportunity.

Jennifer (39:49.975)
Yeah, it's a change management role, a turnaround. And again, people don't like change. it's, you got to think about who's on your team. I have a term where I call people either simplifiers or complexifiers. And it is like one of the things I am looking for if I'm interviewing and they, it starts to be, you know, they can't explain something in a simple way. I'm like,

can't. I can't. And they will not survive in a business like this. It's, you can't complexify, have to simplify. yeah, the other thing that's worked so well for us that was new to me, I had not heard of it is EOS. Are you familiar with? Yeah, of course you are.

Rose (40:12.936)
Yes.

Rose (40:23.158)
But that's a quote. I'm going to borrow that.

Rose (40:36.512)
I am, but for listeners who might not, tell us about it.

Jennifer (40:39.824)
It's the entrepreneurial operating system. And I had to clarify with Barilla because they were like, what is this system you're buying and installing? What technology? And I was like, no, no, no, it's just a way of working. It's not an actual system. It's a way of working that is really, it gives you takes your annual goals, which everybody has, but you're breaking them down into quarterly goals. And for a company of our 50 million, I've got maybe 10.

quarterly goals, not a lot. And then quarterly goals are broken down into milestones, which hit individual people on the team with dates and owners. And so it is a way to be so clear and focused on where you are spending your resources, dollars, and people, and exactly what is a priority and what is not a priority. And I...

Again, I thought I was good at this before and I look back and I'm like, my God, I was probably a disaster because this is the gold standard of really driving action and momentum on a team. And I know what every single person on my team is working on. Every single person, I know what they're doing where I can't say that and any other, you kind of generally knew, but like.

I know everything and I know when it's due and when they're gonna do it. And then we talk about, we gonna hit this quarterly goal or not? And if not, what are we gonna do to impact it? And so our leadership team meetings are so focused and we are operating at such a high level because of how focused and...

how we're allocating our resources that I was laughing with our team. I'm like, it's almost like cheating. Like, like, of course we're going to meet our annual objectives because we talk about them every single week. Um, where I know a lot of companies go to like look at, the end of the year, did I accomplish my objectives? And you're like, where am I? Where did I save that document? What were my objectives this year? I can't remember. Like everybody talks, everyone in my team talks about them every single week.

Jennifer (42:53.19)
So they are going to happen.

Rose (42:56.15)
Well, and that too supports simplicity because it's simple and it's clear you have the best shot at being able to achieve something. And really you have to have that. And to that end, I wonder six months from now, a year from now, what will success look like for you?

Jennifer (42:59.727)
Mm-hmm. Right.

Yep.

Jennifer (43:08.025)
Thanks.

Jennifer (43:14.856)
Good.

Yeah, well, I think we will have an amazing story on this turnaround. And I've already got the margin engine going. So like, I know I'm going to get to where I want to get on margins. And it's just a matter of executing like that. I know. But the brand piece, we are going to have an amazing story. And you know, what I want to do is get back to our position as a leader and cookies and crackers and where our velocities are turning, you know, majority of our skews and

in the top third, we're actively selling against new distribution. We've got the whole engine humming again, we're reinvesting in the business and we've got a very loyal consumer following and hopefully a lot of them are new to the brand. We've been driving Penn. That's what I hope. I don't know, maybe it's too aggressive in six months, but I think that's the direction we're gonna be heading.

Rose (44:03.092)
that.

Rose (44:08.918)
It's incredible. And I think we're coming up on time here. And one question I always love to ask is, if you were writing a note to your younger self, what words of wisdom would you use?

Jennifer (44:21.843)
You

Jennifer (44:25.841)
my god. Hmm.

Jennifer (44:34.886)
You know, I think I would say, you can do it like you can do it because I do know, you know, I've had some big jobs and big, you know, billion dollar plus brands, et cetera. But even coming in at this level, this was my first CEO job. I had that little imposter syndrome creeping up again, like, I don't know, can you do it? You know, and it's like, I have been able to, you know, to

accomplished things I never thought were possible. I never dreamed about that early in my career. I never even knew I wanted it. And it has been so fun and so rewarding. Probably the other advice I would give is leadership and relationships are the most important things at all levels, really. But I would say early on, didn't.

I didn't think through the relationship part early enough in my career and just the networking and paying it forward and like circling back and keeping those relationships alive with people you've worked with in the past. And I do that.

I spent a lot of time doing that now and it has really paid off for me in terms of that's how I hired my whole team. That's how I'm learning tidbits about who's doing what and okay, maybe we should try XYZ. And it's just really personally rewarding for me.

Rose (46:02.454)
Oh, just such great wisdom. I cannot thank you enough for spending the time. And genuinely, I think, again, I have to come back, if you will, and share us your thoughts.

Jennifer (46:12.04)
or yeah, I'll bring some snacks and we can share some snacks and talk about results.

Rose (46:18.836)
I love it. I love it. Well, any last words of wisdom before we depart? one thing, I'm sure people will want to get in touch with you talking about building community and full circle. So how best, do tell us, how best can people get in touch with you and any other words of wisdom you'd want to offer?

Jennifer (46:24.615)
Mm.

Jennifer (46:29.056)
yeah.

Jennifer (46:36.23)
Yeah, LinkedIn, LinkedIn, get in touch with me on LinkedIn or snack back to nature is our handle on all the socials. So please follow, follow along. Words of wisdom is, yeah, trust your instincts. Like, if you're doing this, you've you've you know what you're doing and you're in that role for a reason. So trust your instincts.

And don't be afraid of change. I think it's kind of change or die versus like thinking that not changing is avoiding all risk. It's like the riskiest thing you can do is not change, especially if you need a turnaround. so yeah. and keep it simple. Keep it simple. Don't be a complex. Yeah.

Rose (47:11.711)
It is.

Rose (47:27.126)
Oh, I love that one. That one's my favorite one in all of it, actually. Well, thank you for your time today. Really, really appreciate it. Great story.

Jennifer (47:34.312)
Thank you so much. This was great. Thank you.