CASE STUDY ASSIGNMENTS IN RESEARCH PAPER FORMAT ? Topic : Case Study: Hillshire Farms ?https://hbsp.harvard.edu/download?url=%2Fcourses%2F1019680%2Fitems%2FKE1170-PDF-ENG%2Fcontent&metadata=

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October 19, 2020

N E A L J . R O E S E A N D J O H N P AV L U S

The Hillshire Farm Brand: Growth Opportunities in Snacking

Megan Huddleston sat at her desk in Te Hillshire Brands Company’s* corporate headquarters in Chicago’s West Loop neighborhood, staring at her mid-afternoon snack: vanilla-favored Greek yogurt. It was the fall of 2013, and everyone seemed to be eating this stuf—over the past year, Greek yogurt had become a full-blown craze.1 As a marketing director for Te Hillshire Brands Co., Huddleston knew why: Compared to other high-protein snacks such as jerky and nuts, “fresh” foods like yogurt were trending upward, especially among millennials.2 Personally, Huddleston did not quite see the appeal; a tub of white glop was not exactly convenient to toss in a bag on the way out the door. But she did know that Hillshire Brands needed to fnd a way to capitalize on the momentum surrounding protein snacking—and soon.

Te Hillshire Brands Co. was the home of the Hillshire Farm brand, the well-known brand of supermarket lunchmeat, smoked sausage, and cocktail links. But growth had recently stalled in two of those categories.3 Between 2012 and 2013, competitors such as Hormel and Oscar Mayer had launched new high-protein products (REV brand meat and cheese wraps and larger- portion Lunchables Uploaded, respectively) aimed at keeping overscheduled teenagers satisfed between meals.4 Overall, American snacking habits were dominated by fresh fruit, cookies, and a hodgepodge of portable options like cheese, crackers, pretzels, and nuts. Existing meat-based protein options, such as jerky, accounted for just 0.5% of personal snacking behavior.5 With trends pointing to a general softening of consumer spending on packaged foods in the near future,6 new growth opportunities for Hillshire Brands were urgently needed.

* Tyson Foods acquired Te Hillshire Brands Co. in July 2014. ©2020 by the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. Tis case was prepared by Professor Neal J. Roese and John Pavlus. Cases are developed solely as the basis for class discussion. Cases are not intended to serve as endorsements, sources of primary data, or illustrations of efective or inefective management. Some details might have been fctionalized for pedagogical purposes. To order copies or request permission to reproduce materials, call 800-545-7685 (or 617-783-7600 outside the United States or Canada) or e-mail [email protected] No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, used in a spreadsheet, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise—without the permission of Kellogg Case Publishing.

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To secure that growth, Huddleston knew, Hillshire Brands had to appeal to the millennial mindset around snacking, freshness, and convenience.7 But could the Hillshire Farm brand be leveraged to make this appeal, or would entirely new brands be needed to serve these emerging consumer trends? If the Hillshire Farm brand were used, what would be the best path forward for brand extension?

Company Background In 1926, a 22-year-old Austrian butcher named Fritz Bernegger immigrated to the United

States with his wife, Armella, fnding work in the Wisconsin meat industry. In 1934, the Berneggers settled in New London, Wisconsin, and founded a business comprising three stores and a slaughterhouse. By 1938 they had added a full-service meatpacking facility called Quality Packing House on a one-acre family farm8 (the “farm” in the company’s later branding), which supplied handcrafted meat and sausages to the Berneggers’ retail stores.9

In 1954, the Berneggers divested themselves of their retail operations and incorporated the meatpacking plant as their core business, renaming it Hillshire Meat Products. In 1971, Hillshire Meat Products merged with Consolidated Foods—later known as the Sara Lee Corporation— and changed the company’s name again, to Hillshire Farm. Te frst Hillshire Farm television advertisements (showing the company’s “horse and buggy” logo) appeared in 1978. Te frm employed more than 900 people and produced more than 3 million pounds of meat per week.10

In 1983, the frm launched what would become one of the company’s most iconic and category- defning products: “Lit’l Smokies” brand cocktail sausage links.

Over the subsequent two decades, Hillshire Farm launched additional products in the smoked sausage and premium lunchmeat categories. In 2002, the company partnered with Gladware to invent and launch a new lunchmeat packaging concept: rigid, resealable plastic containers.11 In 2009, Hillshire Farm further reinforced the premium association with its brand by redesigning its logo, ditching the horse and buggy for a slightly abstracted image of a barn and silo (see Exhibit 1). And in 2012, the Sara Lee Corporation spun of Hillshire Farm and its other branded protein businesses as an independent “meat-centric” corporation, renamed Te Hillshire Brands Co.

Product Portfolio

Te Hillshire Farm brand ofered products in multiple categories (see Figure 1):

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Figure 1: The Hillshire Farm Brand’s Product Offerings

Premium Lunchmeat:

• Product lines: 40

• Revenue: $504 million

• Key offerings: ultra-thin, thick-sliced, and lower- sodium varieties of turkey, ham, chicken, roast beef, and pastrami

Premium Sausage Ropes and Links:

• Product lines: 31

• Revenue: $414 million

• Key offerings: (smoked) pork, beef, turkey sausage, polska kielbasa, bratwurst, and hot dogs

Cocktail Sausages:

• Product lines: 31

• Revenue: $138 million

• Key offerings: Lit’l Smokies, Lit’l Wieners, and Lit’l Polskas

Other:

• Summer sausage (3 products)

• Cooked hams (9 products)

Source: Hillshire Farm website, archived version from September 2013, accessed February 2020, https://web.archive.org/ web/20130903155238/http://www.hillshirefarm.com/products.

Brand Strategy

Te Hillshire Farm brand aimed at a target customer it called the “Conficted Stressed Manager”12—someone struggling to satisfy opposing values or options regarding food, who might also be in charge of feeding others. In terms of demographic characteristics, this target customer

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skewed toward being female, married, and a member of Generation X. Psychologically, this target was the sort of person who was striving to eat healthily without sacrifcing taste; focusing on fresh and healthy food while relying on mainstream brands; and enjoying new ideas encountered in cookbooks and cooking shows but appreciating the familiar. Overall, the Conficted Stressed Manager was open to new ideas but comfortable with established brands.

In earlier years, the Hillshire Farm brand was positioned mainly along functional lines.13 Key benefts of the brand included quality (slow, traditional, and human versus fast, efcient, and mechanized), convenience (products whose preparation could be accomplished simply and quickly, such as pre-cooked sausages), and great favor (as compared to other, less premium products). More recently, however, the Hillshire Farm brand had begun to emphasize psychological value as part of its positioning, specifcally regarding the idea of “assurance.”14 Tis approach explicitly highlighted emotional appeal beyond mere utility, using language such as “taste done right,” “generations of care and craftsmanship,” and “time-tested recipes.”

“Hillshire” Premium Branding

Hillshire Brands recently had completed the development of an experimental new brand identity called “Hillshire”—sometimes referred to internally as “Hillshire Black” because of its black, monochromatic visual identity (see Exhibit 2). Tis new brand concept, not yet launched, originally was designed to help Hillshire Brands research home meal–replacement products (that is, nutritious meals that were refrigerated or fash-frozen without extra preservatives). Te brand concept was specifcally targeted at younger, millennial consumers seeking freshness and innovation. Moreover, the brand added psychological value by injecting a “narrative” to food products. Internal research suggested that “[p]eople seek food they can connect with. Often in response to the tyranny of choice (perhaps best refected by the immensity and dizzying abundance of the American supermarket), people yearn for food with a story.”15 Exactly how this story might unfold for the brand had yet to be determined.

Te Hillshire Black brand was developed without an existing product or specifc category attached to it. However, it did take aim at a new target customer: the “Upbeat Food Explorer.”16

In sharp contrast to the Conficted Stressed Manager, this new target customer was described as adventurous and social in their approach to cooking and eating; satisfed with their current health, weight, lifestyle, and income (literally using the phrase “I wouldn’t change a thing”); and skewing toward the millennial, male, and married or partnered demographic segments.17 Upbeat Food Explorers saw themselves as “connoisseurs” of food and drink, seeking the best or most interesting options available, rather than being motivated by utility.

Given this target customer, the brand’s value propositions were primarily psychological. It was aimed at “inspiring curiosity” and designed to “embody a rich sense of story and experience.” Customers encountering it were intended to assume that the associated product(s) were “made mindfully.”18 Of key importance:, the Hillshire Black brand was intended to occupy a higher price point, or a more premium market position, than the Hillshire Farm brand.

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Competitive Landscape Te Hillshire Farm brand was worth more than $1 billion in sales across its three primary

product categories: premium lunchmeat ($504 million); premium sausage ropes and links ($414 million); and cocktail sausages ($138 million).19 Te Hillshire Farm brand dominated the latter two categories, capturing 23% and 69%, respectively, of total US market share. Te brand captured only 8% of the premium lunchmeat category, with Oscar Mayer dominating the US market at a 32% share.

See Table 1 for more details on the Hillshire Farm brand’s market share and competition.

Table 1: Competitive Landscape

Market Share

PREMIUM LUNCHMEAT

Oscar Mayer 32%

Hillshire Farm 8%

Value competitors (Hormel, Buddig, Land O Frost) <8% each

Applegate <2%

PREMIUM SAUSAGE ROPE & LINKS

Hillshire Farm 23%

Johnsonville 16%

Eckrich 11%

Private labels 6%

COCKTAIL SAUSAGES

Hillshire Farm 69%

Bryan 6%

Eckrich 6%

All others <5% each

Given the highly seasonal sales pattern for cocktail sausages (pegged to Tanksgiving, Christmas, and Super Bowl Sunday), premium lunchmeat and sausage products made up the bulk of Hillshire Farm brand’s sales (47% and 39%, respectively). But recent sales in those categories were not as promising as had been hoped; lunchmeat sales had declined by 0.8% over the past year, and smoked sausage rope sales had increased by only 1% during the same period.20

Consumption Trends among Americans Meanwhile, market research showed that consumer eating habits were trending toward

snacking instead of the prepared meals in which lunchmeat and sausage had traditionally enjoyed

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prominence.21 Nearly 94% of Americans snacked every day, with 65% snacking at least twice a day. Younger generations were shifting away from predetermined mealtimes and toward all-day “grazing” on smaller, snack-sized food products or portions.

Several factors were driving these trends toward snacking.22 Eating smaller portions refected a desire among consumers to eat healthier; 46% of consumers reported eating smaller meals than in the previous fve years. Snackable foods were also becoming ubiquitously available to consumers from multiple locations throughout their daily routines, from convenience stores, food trucks, fresh-food vending machines, drugstores, as well as traditional grocery retailers. Finally, a desire for curiosity and fun around food naturally encouraged snacking by providing an opportunity to try new foods with low risk in terms of time, money, and perceived health impact (i.e., calories).

Hillshire Brands commissioned a study from an external industry partner to investigate snacking trends in greater depth.23 Te research revealed that the total snacking market (in-home or via portable products) was worth around $50 billion and was forecast to grow 2.6% annually in the coming years.24 Te report also found that snacking behaviors were diferentiated (in terms of category, snack type, and favor) depending on the time of day; morning and evening snacking tended toward sweet favors, whereas afternoon snacking included both sweet and savory favors. A key attribute favored across usage occasions was convenience, as consumers were gravitating toward snack foods that required little or no preparation, were ready to eat within 30 seconds, and could be eaten cold or at room temperature. Such convenient foods could be located in shelf-stable or refrigerated sections of stores. A key component of the study was the delineation of snacking behavior into “domains” that diferentiated mainly on the basis of time of day. Te study identifed fve domains as growth opportunities.

Naturally Nutritious

Comprising mostly fruit (83%) and yogurt (16%), this domain accounted for 18% of total consumer snacking behavior, and $9.5 billion in sales, over the previous fve years. Te domain was growing at a rate of 1.5% annually, which was greater than the average rate of growth for all snacking domains. Demographically, the domain described health-conscious female consumers (with a slight skew toward older women) who wanted a nutritious portable morning snack to eat alone. Te fruit rollups and yogurt categories were growing at 8% and 6.4% annually, respectively—but the Greek yogurt trend was showing signs of decay, with sales growth slowing by nearly 50% in 2012 and 2013.25

Evening Routine

Tis domain accounted for 23% of snacking occasions and $12 billion in sales and included ice cream and novelties (55% of the domain), popcorn (23%), cakes, and pies. Te typical consumer in this domain shared snacks with family and/or friends in the evening. Popcorn in particular was becoming trendier and was beginning to make appeals to curiosity-seeking consumers by incorporating favors from Morocco, Tailand, or Vietnam.26 However, annual growth in the overall evening routine domain was shrinking by 1% annually.

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Morning Carbs

Te product categories in this domain (donuts, bagels, and mufns) ofered a high convenience factor: Tey were all shelf stable, required low or medium preparation (ready to eat in two minutes or less), and most could be consumed at room temperature. In 2013, the “cronut” (a faky, croissant-like donut) went viral, spreading in popularity from New York City across the globe in a matter of months.27 At the same time, carbs in general were “out,” trend-wise, and high-protein diets were peaking in popularity (the “Paleo diet” was the most Googled diet of 2013).28 Some scientists also began investigating whether people could become literally addicted to carbs, “potentially fuel[ing] overeating.”29 Te Morning Carbs snacking domain was also one of the smallest of the fve, comprising 4% of eating occasions. Nevertheless, spurred in part by a wide variety of oferings, as well as by competitive innovation, the domain was expected to grow by at least 2% annually in the coming years.

Versatile All Day

Te largest domain in the snacking landscape (comprising 28% of eating occasions and $14.7 billion in sales) included candy, gum, pretzels, crackers, nuts, cheese, and bars. Tis domain’s growth was forecast at around 0.5%. What united this grab-bag of product categories was convenience: all were consumable at room temperature; almost all were low preparation (i.e., ready to eat “as-is,” with no assembly required, within 30 seconds of opening the package); and most were shelf-stable or refrigerated. Protein-containing product categories like nuts and cheese were growing at nearly 3% per year, triple the average annual growth rate of snacking as a whole. Te typical consumer of this snack domain was single and slightly more afuent than average and was roughly evenly represented along other demographic dimensions (age, life stage, and gender). Of the product categories in this domain, 39% were carb-heavy (cereal, crackers, breads, pretzels, and non-protein sandwiches), and 35% were less healthy (candy and gum).

Savory/Filling

Tis domain represented 12% of total snacking behaviors, accounted for $6 billion in sales, and included chips, ready-to-heat options like pizza and soup, as well as meat snacks such as jerky, hot dogs, burgers, and lunchmeat combos. Te domain was growing at the same rate as the overall snack market, about 1% annually. Jerky was one of the fastest-growing categories, with $1 billion in sales over the previous year. Chips were the largest product category in this domain, accounting for 60% of eating occasions. Refrigerated lunchmeat combos (kid-friendly boxed snacks typically ofering lunchmeat, crackers, cheese, and sometimes a sweet) were growing faster over the previous year than dried meat snacks, at 13% versus 8%.30 Oscar Mayer’s Lunchables product founded the refrigerated combos category and dominated it (80% of sales, creating “a sea of yellow”31 packaging in the refrigerated lunchmeat section of grocery stores). Refrigerated combo brands with “real food”/“quality” value propositions (e.g., Hormel’s REV meat and cheese wraps) accounted for fewer than 5% of sales in this category.32 Tis snacking domain had more product categories requiring relatively high levels of preparation (multi-step assembly; cutting/slicing and

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plating, possibly heating required; at least two minutes before ready for consumption). However, jerky and refrigerated combos appealed to convenience seekers by fulflling a consumer need called “easy protein routine”: high-protein, routinely eaten snacks requiring no preparation.

Path Forward Armed with extensive market research and a new in-house brand (Hillshire Black) waiting for

deployment, Megan Huddleston pondered several options to bring new growth to the Hillshire Brands suite of oferings.

1. Te frst option was to bypass the use of either the Hillshire Farm brand or the Hillshire Black brand and instead to create an entirely new brand (or brands) to meet the needs of one or more of the fve snacking described in the study. Te key beneft of developing a new brand was that the blank-slate status permitted the brand design to be tailored precisely to the needs of the new category. Te downside was that building a new brand would be costly and time- consuming.

2. Te second option was to use the Hillshire Farm brand to extend into one or more of the fve snacking domains. Te Hillshire Farm brand had the beneft of high brand awareness and a solid track record that spanned decades. Te downside was the challenge of integrating a new product category into the existing brand image.

3. Te third option was to use the Hillshire Black brand to extend into one or more of the fve snacking domains. Hillshire Black had the beneft of an already-completed brand design, but the downside was that it had not yet been deployed in the market and thus had experienced no brand awareness.

At the same time, Huddleston also needed to decide into which of the fve domains of snacking (Naturally Nutritious, Evening Routine, Morning Carbs, Versatile All Day, Savory/Filling) to move. All fve fell easily within the product-innovation capabilities of her frm. Te question was how best to leverage the existing portfolio that comprised Hillshire Brands.

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Exhibit 1: Hillshire Farm Logo Redesign, 2009

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Exhibit 2: Hillshire Black Brand Design

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Exhibit 2 (continued)

Source: Tyson internal documents.

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Endnotes 1 Sarah E. Needleman, “Old Factory, Snap Decision Spawn Greek-Yogurt Craze,” Wall Street Journal, June 20,

2012. 2 “Five Consumer Trends Shaping the Future of the Food and Foodservice Industries,” press release, May 7, 2015,

https://www.npd.com/wps/portal/npd/us/news/press-releases/2015/fve-consumer-trends-shaping-the-future- of-the-food-and-foodservice-industries.

3 Tyson Foods internal documents. 4 Erin Mosbaugh, “Kraft Makes a Killing Selling ‘Uploaded’ Lunchables to Teens,” First We Feast, May 20,

2014, https://frstwefeast.com/eat/2014/05/kraft-makes-a-fortune-selling-new-uploaded-lunchables-to-teens; “Hormel Foods Energizes the Protein-Based Snack Category with the Launch of Hormel® REV® Wraps,” press release, July 17, 2013, https://www.hormelfoods.com/newsroom/press-releases/hormel-foods-energizes-the- protein-based-snack-category-with-the-launch-of-hormel-rev-wraps.

5 External industry partner report, “Hillshire Brands—World of Snacking,” February 5, 2013. 6 Jacob Bunge and Annie Gasparro, “Hillshire Brands to Buy Pinnacle Foods for $4.3 Billion,” Wall Street

Journal, May 12, 2014. 7 Tyson Foods internal documents. 8 Hillshire Farm, “Our Story,” accessed February 2020, https://www.hillshirefarm.com/our-story. 9 “Wisconsin Meat Industry Hall of Fame,” University of Wisconsin-Madison, accessed February 2020,

http://www.ansci.wisc.edu/Meat_HOF/1994/bernegger.htm. 10 Ibid. 11 Sam Gazdziak, “Turning to Tubs,” National Provisioner, April 1, 2005, https://www.provisioneronline.com/

articles/94569-turning-to-tubs-1. 12 Hillshire Farm website, archived version from September 2013, accessed February 20

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