Pillsbury looking to change meaning of baking from scratch
It may be one of the least damaged, but that does not mean there is not much work to do, internally, in reforming the structure of the economy - and in privatizing the rest of Polish enterprises and reducing the government role in those already privatized but still tied to the onetime Mama Ship. Still.
There are many tangible signs that outsiders see Poland as a safe environment to do business in. And that they think there is much business to be done. One sign is the continued influx of mega-multinationals.
Take Pillsbury. Thomas S. Hunter arrived last spring as general manager to establish Pillsbury Polska. The U.S.-founded company now is part of a European conglomerate that itself has a new name, Diageo. Pillsbury, at $6.5 billion in worldwide sales, is about a fourth of the overall Diageo empire.
So why Poland? "We're in 18-20 countries and I wonder why we were not here earlier," says Hunter.
But why? What makes Poland a magnet for mass-market food companies like Pillsbury, whose major product lines in addition to the core boxed- and loose-package baking products are Green Giant (vegetables, mostly, both canned and frozen); chilled pasta; Haagen Dazs ice cream and Old El Paso spices and bottled and canned Mexican foods. Hunter, who has worked with Macro International on market research and Leo Burnett on marketing, says, "Poland has a strong baking culture. People eat a lot of cakes and they bake at home a lot." More than in the United States, in fact, despite the fact that Poland's bakeries are also excellent and are everywhere.
He also cited its "strong middle-class values" but when, pushed on that, was hesitant to spell out exactly what that might mean to a multinational. He said Pillsbury had spent decades, and still considers its central mission, "to try to make it easier for people to do what they want to do."
That doesn't mean doing it the American way. Campbell's Soup found that out the hard way and no longer is in Poland. They miscalculated on several of the basics - and everyone coming in after them has tried to learn those lessons.
When Campbell's offered up their canned soups, with heavy support from advertising about how it would make life easier for women in the kitchen, many Poles took that as an insult. It was early in the transition - and enough women apparently felt threatened that their second, full-time job of cooking (in addition to the full-time workplace job) was threatened by these new quick-mix foods. And so a subtle boycott occurred on foods that they perceived might put them out of business, in the kitchen. That included not buying Campbell's soup.
In addition, however, Hunter said, while canned soups are the norm in the United States, soups are made from scratch here or in the case of "helpers" from Knorr or Winiary are in the form of powdered soup starters.
•••
So how does a newly arrived mega-multinational CEO act? Looks and learns. He's been paying attention to the major multinational already on the ground doing baking mixes: Germany's Dr. Oetker's. He's seen the strength of the homegrown Malma pasta company in Malbork - but hadn't seen that they now have branched out to Polish-style toasty crackers for spreads. He knows the Blikle brand name and the high-grade frozen croissants and other frozen breakfast pastries they introduced this year but has not yet met Andrzej Blikle, the CEO.
And he is watching the onetime state juice producer, Hortex, as it begins its path toward modernity, as well as looking at the major strides made by Agros, which makes and markets all sorts of frozen fruit and vegetables in addition to its Fortuna juices that still sell well.
He's also putting a core staff in place after being a loner for six months. He hired Magdalena Kruszewska away from Unilever to be his marketing director, starting later in October:
With the help of the experts, he's trying to learn Polish tastes. "It's a wrong assumption to think that American products are what people want. You have to be sensitive to local tastes. We shouldn't underestimate the Polish home baking tradition - they are very proud of it," he said.
Surveys show that "there is far more from-scratch baking and cooking here," he said, than in the United States.
"You can't even ask a question such as 'do you bake from scratch' in the U.S. People say, 'Oh yes, I start with a Pillsbury mix and then ...' " That, of course, is not starting with the flour and sugar and butter and salt and mixing it "from scratch."
In Poland, he said, either because mixes are only now being introduced or because of long-held preferences as well, "people want to bake things themselves, to make something of their own."
•••
Hunter's wife Susan had her own business in Minneapolis, designing gifts for corporate customers, but is not clear how she'll apply her creative talent here. Son Ross, 20, is a student at the University of Virginia but is coming over for Christmas. Emily, 17, is a senior in high school and practicing her Swedish - yes, Swedish; she wants to spend a year in Sweden, the land of her grandparents, after finishing high school. Mitchell, 13, is in the eighth grade.
There are many tangible signs that outsiders see Poland as a safe environment to do business in. And that they think there is much business to be done. One sign is the continued influx of mega-multinationals.
Take Pillsbury. Thomas S. Hunter arrived last spring as general manager to establish Pillsbury Polska. The U.S.-founded company now is part of a European conglomerate that itself has a new name, Diageo. Pillsbury, at $6.5 billion in worldwide sales, is about a fourth of the overall Diageo empire.
So why Poland? "We're in 18-20 countries and I wonder why we were not here earlier," says Hunter.
But why? What makes Poland a magnet for mass-market food companies like Pillsbury, whose major product lines in addition to the core boxed- and loose-package baking products are Green Giant (vegetables, mostly, both canned and frozen); chilled pasta; Haagen Dazs ice cream and Old El Paso spices and bottled and canned Mexican foods. Hunter, who has worked with Macro International on market research and Leo Burnett on marketing, says, "Poland has a strong baking culture. People eat a lot of cakes and they bake at home a lot." More than in the United States, in fact, despite the fact that Poland's bakeries are also excellent and are everywhere.
He also cited its "strong middle-class values" but when, pushed on that, was hesitant to spell out exactly what that might mean to a multinational. He said Pillsbury had spent decades, and still considers its central mission, "to try to make it easier for people to do what they want to do."
That doesn't mean doing it the American way. Campbell's Soup found that out the hard way and no longer is in Poland. They miscalculated on several of the basics - and everyone coming in after them has tried to learn those lessons.
When Campbell's offered up their canned soups, with heavy support from advertising about how it would make life easier for women in the kitchen, many Poles took that as an insult. It was early in the transition - and enough women apparently felt threatened that their second, full-time job of cooking (in addition to the full-time workplace job) was threatened by these new quick-mix foods. And so a subtle boycott occurred on foods that they perceived might put them out of business, in the kitchen. That included not buying Campbell's soup.
In addition, however, Hunter said, while canned soups are the norm in the United States, soups are made from scratch here or in the case of "helpers" from Knorr or Winiary are in the form of powdered soup starters.
•••
So how does a newly arrived mega-multinational CEO act? Looks and learns. He's been paying attention to the major multinational already on the ground doing baking mixes: Germany's Dr. Oetker's. He's seen the strength of the homegrown Malma pasta company in Malbork - but hadn't seen that they now have branched out to Polish-style toasty crackers for spreads. He knows the Blikle brand name and the high-grade frozen croissants and other frozen breakfast pastries they introduced this year but has not yet met Andrzej Blikle, the CEO.
And he is watching the onetime state juice producer, Hortex, as it begins its path toward modernity, as well as looking at the major strides made by Agros, which makes and markets all sorts of frozen fruit and vegetables in addition to its Fortuna juices that still sell well.
He's also putting a core staff in place after being a loner for six months. He hired Magdalena Kruszewska away from Unilever to be his marketing director, starting later in October:
With the help of the experts, he's trying to learn Polish tastes. "It's a wrong assumption to think that American products are what people want. You have to be sensitive to local tastes. We shouldn't underestimate the Polish home baking tradition - they are very proud of it," he said.
Surveys show that "there is far more from-scratch baking and cooking here," he said, than in the United States.
"You can't even ask a question such as 'do you bake from scratch' in the U.S. People say, 'Oh yes, I start with a Pillsbury mix and then ...' " That, of course, is not starting with the flour and sugar and butter and salt and mixing it "from scratch."
In Poland, he said, either because mixes are only now being introduced or because of long-held preferences as well, "people want to bake things themselves, to make something of their own."
•••
Hunter's wife Susan had her own business in Minneapolis, designing gifts for corporate customers, but is not clear how she'll apply her creative talent here. Son Ross, 20, is a student at the University of Virginia but is coming over for Christmas. Emily, 17, is a senior in high school and practicing her Swedish - yes, Swedish; she wants to spend a year in Sweden, the land of her grandparents, after finishing high school. Mitchell, 13, is in the eighth grade.
