This week on the podcast, Brent sits down with Wendy Jean Bennett, vice president of retail commerce leadership at Tyson Foods. They discuss Wendy Jean's career in the food industry spanning over 30 years, mostly at Tyson. Wendy Jean shares her passion for food and desire to influence the company to make it better each day. They also discuss the evolving food industry landscape including trends towards convenience, sustainability and global cuisines, and how Tyson is navigating the omni-channel retail transformation. Finally, Wendy Jean reflects on the value of mentors, exposure, networking and saying yes to new challenges throughout her career journey.
Podcast Episode
Episode Transcript
Wendy Jean Bennett 0:00
It's interesting people ask me what I value the most. I value the influence I have
on the company to be able to make it a better company every day I wake up of how can
I make this company better, and help drive this organization.
Brent Williams 0:14
Welcome to the be epic podcast brought to you by the Sam M. Walton College of Business
at the University of Arkansas. I'm your host, Brent Williams. Together, we'll explore
the dynamic landscape of business and uncover the strategies, insights and stories
that drive business today. All right, well, today I have with me Wendy Jean Bennett,
from Tyson Foods. Wendy Jean is the vice president of retail commerce leadership at
Tyson Foods. Wendy, thank you for joining me.
Wendy Jean Bennett 0:46
I'm so happy to be here. Brent. This is fantastic.
Brent Williams 0:49
It is. I'm excited to have you here. You know, in your role, I think you have category
leadership, I think insights, e commerce, shopper marketing, and and you've gotten
a really varied set of experiences mostly in food. So 30 years in the food industry,
most of that at Tyson I think so. And I thought what was really interesting is maybe
going all the way back to the early part of your career, I think you're in food service
at a university?
Wendy Jean Bennett 1:20
The old days. Yes yes.
Brent Williams 1:22
So quite a career thus far. Tell me more. Tell me more about your current role and
would love to learn a little bit about from your viewpoint like what did that journey
look like?
Wendy Jean Bennett 1:32
Absolutely. I think it's important to understand people's journeys, at least from
a business lens and sense and a career development, which I think is critically important.
So currently, you nail it on the head, I have four disciplines, all on the retail
side of the business, retail, meaning grocery mass retailers also includes dollar,
drug, club channels. So all those channels of business on the retail side, it is category
management, which is a great discipline, we are the advisor for many of the retailers
we work with. So we do share and we look at the growth and what's happening in that
category and deliver insights to those retailers. There's actually a firewall you
might not know that, but with a lot of retailers, you cannot just openly talk to sales
like they trust us we have NDAs to be able to deliver the best category advancement
to help everyone grow. So that's that's the largest discipline I manage. Then as you
said, we have insights ours is more of those insights directly related to the retailers.
So the big questions they're asking like right now, what's going on with the consumer?
What's going on with snap money, government money going away? How is that going to
impact us in the business so our insights team really concentrates. It's all primary
research, so not using syndicated to do that, our category team does use syndicated
and we do have insights people who manage our syndicated tools on those sides, commerce
marketing is shopper marketing. You're right on we changed the name because of omni
channel,
Brent Williams 2:59
Right
Wendy Jean Bennett 2:59
So now because it does include ecommerce is on my team as well as shopper marketing.
So we call that now commerce marketing. It's everything incorporated together, whether
you're buying or planning offline, online when you go to the store, when the conversion
happens. So those four disciplines is what I managed today.
Brent Williams 3:18
Okay.
Wendy Jean Bennett 3:18
You asked about the journey. I always knew I wanted to be food. So I'm going to start
old old school story of when you people ask, what do you want to be when you grow
up? Well, my number one answer was an astronaut. You know, I'm old. So I was drinking
Tang, and I always want to do the astronaut. But number two was I wanted to be a waitress.
I know that's really, you know, big, big job there when you're young. And all I wanted
for Christmas was the little note pad that they used to take orders on and one of
those tear pads and I got it. And so I would take your order on the dinner table me
my brothers, sister and family. And I would even though we only had one item like
you know you had only got meatballs tonight. That's all you're getting. But let me
take your order down. And I was I always knew I wanted to be in food. So food was
always my journey. At that point, the best schools was Cornell which we couldn't afford
to go to, even with scholarships, and UNLV so interesting enough, I'm a girl from
New England, New Hampshire and went to Las Vegas, so not smart always to go to a town
that's open 24 hours when you're young. But so great life experiences there but it
actually was a fantastic college. And you had all the hotels right there that you
could do internships with and restaurants so you could specialize in hotel side or
restaurant side. I specialized in restaurants. So that's what got me into the food
business and I loved my first journey, as you mentioned, was in colleges and university
it's contract management services. It used to be Marriott management services. It
was bought out by Sodexo. There's three big E's, Compass, Aramark, and Sodexo. And
so then I worked at different colleges University what's so great, I love about that
and what I love about the university atmosphere and being here today is in business,
sometimes you're stuck in your internal business lens world. And when I worked on
campus, I mean, the students would come in, and we'd have student managers and students
that worked with us, with us, along with full time employees. And you talked about
philosophy and life and things they learned in class, and they want to apply it and
what are the thoughts on that and quantum physics and you could have such a books
diverse conversation, and keeps you young at the university campus as opposed and
gives you more diversity and inclusivity honestly, from being in that perspective,
and having that broader lens, because I find that expanding your horizons is the best
thing you can do to open your thought process of how you act and react to business
problems in this world.
Brent Williams 5:51
You know, and on that note, I think one thing about the Walton College of Business
that I love is the interaction that occurs with industry, you know, and whether it's
here, whether it's out in the business community, it's happening every single day
Wendy Jean Bennett 6:06
Every day.
Brent Williams 6:07
And there's a lot of magic that happens for for both. So I think it was really, I
really enjoyed hearing from your perspective, you know, what is the value you get
from interacting with universities, colleges and our students?
Wendy Jean Bennett 6:19
I absolutely love it. And I love that spark of curiosity, nothing, you know, when
you hire, you look at will and skill. And I, I can teach someone, almost anything,
as long as they have, what they learn here, the rudimentary business acumen application,
and if they have the will, I'm gonna hire them. So that's always what's exciting to
me is that spark of curiosity, and that will so I loved working in the university
environment, I'm gonna skip forward. And I learned a lot on how to be a manager, some
leadership skill sets, you know, and one of the core ones I would say for myself,
is motivation and inspiration. I, you know, in these times, and everything we just
handled with the pandemic, it was important to have motivation and inspiration as
a leader, and really dig deep and project that for your team. And the second thing
I learned right as I went from my 20s, to 30s, was self awareness is a skill set.
I swear if I have a book, Brent it's gonna be one of the chapters, and how do I know
this, because I went and saw someone on stage, who was pinch hitting for me, because
I was not feeling well. And I kind of had a little bit of laryngitis couldn't talk
to someone who was pinch hitting for me, and I'm watching him on stage. And it was
a peer. And, you know, it was a good, you know, thing. It wasn't very, you know, it
was good. You know, like when you sit in the audience, and you're listening, and you're
clapping and doing all the right things, the right right moment, and head nodding,
but it really didn't blow me away. And it was good, but not great. And I see people
around me looking at their phones. So they're not engaged. You can see it in the audience
when you're losing them. And then he came off, and I'm like, how do you think it went,
he goes, oh, I killed it. That went great. I was fabulous. And I literally had that
moment of oh, he is completely unaware. He thinks he really did an A level job. I'm
a big grader. I know that's bad with school. But and I'm like it was like a C and
it really needed some improvement. And so it's interesting because I sometimes over
analyze, but the second I'm done something I say how can I do that better. But I also
think that makes me a sharper manager for continuous improvement. So that was a big
lesson I learned in my 30s that context and perspective are critically important.
And one of the most interesting classes I took at that time was body language. And
watching people's body language it really helped me is then as you noticed in my career,
I went into sales and marketing. And so I'm working with our retail partners, I'm
working on the foodservice side, I have gone all the way to lead teams, some of our
key retailers, like Kroger, Meijer, Target. And it was really that nothing was more
important than in the meeting and watching the body language of what happens. And
sometimes people are focused on the content they need to deliver. And they're reading
their slide or they're reading their notes. And they're not paying attention to the
dynamics of the room. And I would leave and go, Oh, they're already going to do something
with our competitor. And they're already moving forward with this because they totally
pushed back a little bit and showed disinterest or they're thinking of that strategy.
And they really liked that idea. We need to follow up on that. And honestly, my directors,
these are leaders, these are directors would be like, wow, I didn't even notice that
or I didn't even catch that. And those are some of the critical things that really
unlock success in business. And they sound very elementary, but we don't always teach
that as well or how to apply that and engage it in the business world.
Brent Williams 9:54
Yeah, that's right. And that's an onload ongoing learning process. How do you as you
lead teams is in these four different areas of the business across sales and marketing?
Well, I guess how do you go uncover those needs and hire hopefully to do a great job
getting those skills into your organization. But how do you develop people as you
think about those needs and across your teams?
Wendy Jean Bennett 10:18
Yeah, absolutely. A you gotta have strong onboarding plans. And Tyson is very good
at investing in this and we have day long classes, people go to dow get on boarded,
learn about Tyson get grounded in that. And then when they come to us, we just have
to teach the basic functions of the team and work on that. So they job shadow is critically
important in the process of onboarding and learning of what they do to learn their
skill sets. And then we luckily work for a big company that invests in people. So
we do have different levels of investment, we partner with many we have LinkedIn learning,
we have Tyson University, where they learn about our products, and they really get
hands on with our products and our stance some sort of some people who come from a
CPG landscape, they're not used to dealing with animals, right? So it's, it's a beast,
no pun intended, of sometimes working with a commodity that's perishable. I said,
if I ever left Tyson, I'm going to a shelf stable product that can last a long period
of time, as opposed to something that has days that it can last on shelf and you gotta
get good turns.
Brent Williams 11:24
You know, most of our listeners know Tyson and most of us as consumers know, Tyson.
But tell us a little bit about Tyson, sitting where you sit maybe broadly about the
company, and how its evolved over time.
Wendy Jean Bennett 11:39
Absolutely. I you know, I'll be honest, Tyson was a five year plan for me. When I
came I it was my first exposure to Arkansas. So I said, not sure, this was 2003, it
is much more developed now. And it was a five year plan just for me to get it was
my first manufacturer because I'd work on the other side of the customer side of the
business beforehand, so but the family it's really does treat you like family. And
I came from an organization where the leaders had their own keycard to get to the
14th floor, so you don't even have access to them. You would not even see them unless
it was a special meeting. And literally, I was with Donnie King yesterday in our cafeteria
eating lunch. I mean, that's how unassuming servant leadership it is. You can see
anyone in the hallways at any time you can open door policy go and talk to them. So
the reason I'm still am with Tyson, by far, it's interesting. People ask me what I
value the most. I value the influence I have on the company to be able to make it
a better company every day I wake up of how can I make this company better, and help
drive this organization and the influence I have the organizations that yes, I love
all the jobs I've had, if like you said, I've had probably eight jobs at Tyson. And
they've been great. But I really loved having a seat at the table and just being able
to influence more than anything of where we're going and being able to talk to our
leaders and then talk to everyone. I mentor, you know, eight or nine people on a regular
basis, because that's so important, as you said, to grow and develop our talent, and
make sure to convey and teach them how to be a leader. And I think that's the hardest
step in anyone's career is going from an individual contributor to now a leader of
other people, because you're used to doing it your way and this and so then you have
those people that overly micromanage and want to see it done their way. Or you have
people that are so so hands off because they don't know how to approach coaching,
which is a whole nother skill set you have to learn when you step into that leader
role of I always say one of the lessons I learned, which I really love is there's
a lot of leader, you learn from the worst, right? You learn from some of your worst
leaders. And I used to have a big clock watcher, and at Tyson we all get up early
we're there for the most, I know it's like an eight to five. But for the most part
we're there in the seven o'clock hour. And he used to like watch the clock. And so
one of the greatest things I learned from reading, and another great HR manager was
measured output, not input. And so I really love that lesson. And I always try to
do it with my team. I'm not gonna sit here and watch the clock, I need to know if
the scope of your role is is busy enough or too much and you need more headcount to
help do what we need to do in order to be successful as an organization. That's my
job. And then my other biggest job is remove the barrier. In any organization of life.
There's some red tape or there's some no's and it's great to get a no, I tell my team
all the time you want the no, because no just means not. Now, it's not the right timing.
Timing is so much of it, right? We just had terrible second quarter earnings. So yes,
we're a little tightening the belt a little bit. But we're still so optimistic about
our future and you know, the markets are turning, we're getting there, we're already
have moved the needle. So it's so optimistic of that future. And Donnie King feels
that way too. So don't get stuck or mired down in the moment and make sure we're shooting
for that vision.
Brent Williams 15:11
Yeah. Well, you know, I guess, speaking of vision, and the future maybe, one thing
that I thought it was so interesting just a moment ago, you said, this all started
with a passion for food, even as a child, you loved it, and you love serving food
to your family. Food, and the industry is something we can all relate to, but it is
evolving.
Wendy Jean Bennett 15:35
Absolutely.
Brent Williams 15:35
So I'd love to hear your view on how you see the whole industry evolving, and then
maybe, maybe commenting a little bit on how you see the consumer evolving as it relates
to that.
Wendy Jean Bennett 15:45
Absolutely, yeah, it's so funny. Pre pandemic, it's like cooking is dead. No one even
knows how to cook anymore, millennials can't cook. And then they all learned not all
of them. But a large majority learn during the pandemic and a lot of these home meal
kits, you could have gotten them really comfortable with cooking. I do see us staying
more in a convenient side because one of the key lessons we learned and we're seeing
post pandemic and I'm going to talk about multiple categories, not just ours, but
again, produce, bag salad, pre cut vegetables, people aren't going backwards, they're
still purchasing those and I think that will continue because they realize how how
important time is and we saw people make decisions of A I'm going to retire early.
We saw a lot of people leave the workforce or some families went back to a single
household income instead of dual household income because they're trying to do the
work life balance and they really thought about their work life and what they wanted
to accomplish and raising their families or whatever life stage you're in. But people
really did get back to cooking and and you're seeing it with TikTok and the trends
interesting enough for Gen Z 43% start their product search on TikTok.
Brent Williams 17:05
Interesting
Wendy Jean Bennett 17:05
It's not google, not anything else. And so you know, 80% of the content on your phone
now is video that we're consuming. So I when you said where do I see it going? I definitely
see less things like recipe cards and recipe books, and us morphing into this great
video content, and easy, convenient ways to deliver it. And what I mean by that was
the feta cheese bake craze that happened on TikTok. If you heard about that, but it
was the whole block of cheddar and all the grape tomatoes. And so it's already kind
of pre portioned. And I just assemble, or what we call speed scratch in order to then
cook it and make it so I think that will happen. The other thing that I think is really
exciting is when I grew up, you know, get Chinese food and maybe a little Mexican,
and now, Thai food and Korean food. And there's such an exploration of global foods
coming to the market, we're finally selling more dark meat than ever before in our
chicken, which we couldn't move at all come 10 years ago.
Brent Williams 18:09
Interesting.
Wendy Jean Bennett 18:09
So we are seeing a proliferation of what that mixes with consumers, I still think
they're going to want convenience, I think we're going to find ways to be frictionless,
like I said, seamless in the omni channel right now it's very price sensitive people,
not everyone, but there's a group going back into stores to shop for the best deal
of protein because of the inflationary environment. Because right now most retailers
are catchweight. So it has a range of the price or a maximum. And so therefore we're,
you know, losing a little bit of sales that way. And we got to figure out how to do
that. But we will, right I mean with everyone's kind of scared of AI, what I'm excited
about AI it's going to deliver predictive analytics that we've been talking about.
And I'm sure the school that we I know you've been talking about. I've heard it from
students for quite a while now. And it's finally coming to its impetus. And I think
that will help with so much more efficiencies and so much more predictive analytics
of what consumers are going to do. But, you know, I still see them going to cook it's
going to be easier, it's going to be more convenient cuts, it's going to be more global.
So we're gonna see mix change on proteins. A lot of people think of pork is just pork
chops on the American plate. And pork is the number two global cuisine in the world
once you get past chicken and goat if you didn't know goat's to the number one protein
of the world.
Brent Williams 19:27
I did not.
Wendy Jean Bennett 19:28
You did not know that. And then so the like pork is huge in the Latino culture and
in Asian culture as well. It's not beef, like we're big beef eaters, which is great,
but I just think we don't have it in the right form for them to cook up a great stir
fry or some of these other you know, items that we're seeing out there from street
tacos to tort, you know, tortas, with Mexican sandwiches, and there's just this whole
proliferation going to happen and I'm finally starting to see Indian which I'm excited
because I love Indian. The first wave of Indian was very polarizing because it was
curries. So you either love curries or hate curries. And now we're seeing chicken
tikka masala, which is tomato based, American palettes get that and we're seeing biryanis,
which are rice flavored dishes. So I think we're going to see a lot more global cuisine
in the palette, which I think is exciting. We're still seeing people travel, even
though, you know, people are tightening the belt there. They didn't travel during
the pandemic. So travel is really still big right now on people's minds and getting
out there for summer vacation. So I think we're gonna see that product mix shift,
but I think that's exciting. I think we're well poised. I think it's funny. And you
might not know this, you know, this, but when people think protein, they think of
cereal, because it's called out on cereal that, you know, there's so many grams of
protein. And we're the OG protein people like chicken, beef and pork, like, it's the
original protein. So I think people forget that. So we're going to a lot of call outs
and protein if you've looked at any of our packages lately.
Brent Williams 21:02
Yeah. Well, I think I think what's so interesting about everything you're talking
about is it's giving you your team Tyson, really an opportunity to deliver more value
to the consumer, right. And that is either you're saving them time, or you're opening
us up to new experiences that we might not have gotten without without your products.
Wendy Jean Bennett 21:23
Yeah, and the culinary part, just like you said, is a passion for me. That's one of
the things I loved working on the foodservice side is working with our top chain customers
like Chipotle, they're a customers of ours or potbelly sandwich works, if you're aware
of them in the Midwest, and developing specific products for them to use in their
formats. And they all have different cooking platforms like we have stoves or a lot
of us now have air fryers. That's the other thing, it kind of surpassed instapot.
So we're doing a lot of things that work in the air fryer. So but from a culinary
lens, it's really exciting to see the next proliferation of where's Jimmy Dean going,
where are we gonna go with State Fair for snacking, we're gonna go with our anchor,
Tyson brands. So there's some great ideas in the pipeline that are going to be pretty
exciting.
Brent Williams 22:11
You know throughout your career, you mentioned some companies you've worked with,
you've worked with lots of large retailers over your career, you know, and it's, it's
collectively that you know, a producer, you know, in a brand company like Tyson and
retailer together, they're coming together to deliver that product and value to the
consumer. So how do you think about building relationships with those with with your
customers, ultimately, to serve the consumer? And how do you do that sustainably?
Wendy Jean Bennett 22:44
Yeah, absolutely. Well, the first step in all the consumer work, and even working
with retailers outside in approach. So where I see some companies fail is an inside
out approach, like this is the, you know, this is the product I have, and this is
the capacity of chicken I have. And I'm going to force that instead of saying what
is this retailer strategy, which they will provide to you, especially when you're
a partner like Tyson is. And what are they? What is their vision for the next three
or five years? And then looking at that, and making almost like a Venn diagram of
where do we both correlate, a lot of retailers right now we're really big on sustainability.
And we have made huge strides under John Randal Tyson, on sustainability. In fact,
in the cantar rankings, that was the were in the top 10. For the first time ever Tyson
is, I mean, it's always been
Brent Williams 23:34
Congratulations on that.
Wendy Jean Bennett 23:35
Thank you Kraft. We're, we're in the top 10 for the first time category, my team sustainability
moved 22 spots. And the differences just giving a quick grounding is we used to do
just what we can directly influence, a lot of animal welfare things that community
that we're involved in, that we can impact. And John took it to things we can influence.
So growing corn, right, we don't grow corn, farmers grow corn, and then it's harvested,
and we make it for our feed that we give to our chickens, for example. So you know,
we are now influencers to help with green gas emissions, helping reduce deforestation,
helping with corn growing and better soil and landscaping. So we hadn't had that before.
So that was significant. For we've been part of the global climate change and going
to global forums in Europe. So it's been very evolved from that standpoint, but our
retailers really care about that, too. Consumers want sustainability. They want sustainable
packaging. It's been the number one thing we've heard on retailers lips this this
year. So in that Venn diagram, we find the places where we align typically its sustainability
and innovation, our corporate responsibility and the values you have to click connect
on that level of understanding the integrity of what you both are and then have that
transparency and create that partnership where you can have that transparency to then
evolve and create these growth initiatives that you can work on together. So that's
like the the ethos of where it really needs to stem from. Instead of being like this
outside in approach, like I said, it really needs to come from this coordinated effort
of partnerships. So the best unlocks I've seen in my career is us being equally transparent.
And there's times when some retailers can be just very guarded, you know, and it's,
they're not really letting you in and try to do that. And then I've seen the other
end of the spectrum where we created great strategies for them to grow their business.
And then they didn't love our price. And so they went and executed that strategy with
somebody else, which isn't really what you want. But you know, and then luckily, there's
always like the leadership, when you have your top to tops that you can go, come on,
now, we're delivering a lot of value to you, let's make sure we're partnering. But
for the most part, I've had really good luck with some really good partners. I mean,
Walmart is the cornerstone here has been an excellent partner through the years, and
we've done so much together, working, you know, me, specifically, on deli, and most
recently, with David Baskin's team, I mean, you know, just trying to grow and figure
out what we're going to do together and how to unlock growth. I mean, people just
think that the Walmart beef, which we supply for them, even though it's private label,
we're one of their suppliers. They don't even think it comes from the US when you
ask those consumers they think it's Mexico or somewhere else. And they don't even
realize the quality it's you know, upper to their choice. It's high quality product
that is on the shelves people can get every day. And they're now working on rebranding.
If you've seen local stores there, it's American farmers and and they are labeling
the product and but we work really well with those customers Meijer, Target and Kroger,
my others, we all found ways to unlock and drive success. But it does ebb and flow.
And it's hard when you have leadership churn, I would say that's the hardest thing
I've learned through the years because sometimes you're back to square one, or maybe
square two, but you have to like re onboard everyone, so and you lose some of that
momentum. So there's been many times where I've been close to the brass ring, and
we're gonna close a great deal. And we're all aligned, and then you know, something
happens. And then you get out, of course, correct and drive from there. But I've also
been grateful enough to experience some really good wins, and some really good partnerships
along the line. But like I said, I think too many times I hear from retailers, people
are pushing this widget, like, Oh, here's this bottle of water, like I'm gonna, this
is why you need this bottled water Brent. It's the best bottle water and I know there's
Fiji and polar, it's springs. But this bottle of water is really going to drive your
sales. And when you just, you know, everyone can talk about features benefits, I laugh
because every single vendor spire in the world is number one, it's something their
generic decks will say, where I got the number one brand or word number one in frozen,
grocery, you know, vegetable, this. And so everyone finds the thing that they can
raise the number one and I have found in my experience, that's nice. But it's not
always what your retail partner is really looking for in order to drive growth in
a category.
Brent Williams 28:21
And when you look at driving growth in a category with two big companies trying to
get alignment and drive that growth to meet the consumers need. Talk a little bit
about you know kind of mention this with leadership change potentially can disrupt
that. Talk a little bit about the role of building personal relationships to to create
momentum.
Wendy Jean Bennett 28:43
Yeah, um, well, it's difficult. And Walmart doesn't allow that. So you're not able
to do that, other retailers you are. So you are able to develop that. It's interesting
that you say that, I'm not going to talk about myself, I think I'm old school or and
I've learned, I came from a very sociable family. So we always debated at the dinner
table and you know people don't do that anymore. My father wanted us to know math.
So quizzes us at math and wanted us to debate because in his mind debate was not a
four letter word. And he wanted us to have a point of view on things. So I really
appreciate that I learned that, what I find nowadays is I'm training and onboarding
and working with people and we were talking about coaching and development. I'm, I'm
not seeing that like confidence and that point of view. come across and so when you
said when leadership and things aren't going your way. The word I'm thinking of is
they tend to cower and and not be resilient I guess is that word and so it's really
standing your ground and teaching that resiliency because you're gonna get knocked
down you're gonna learn lessons from that knocked down but you do lose a lot of momentum.
When you do have a change. Wait, like I said, what you have to do is depending on
what level it is, is use the people, whatever, let's say it's a VP of a certain account
was gone. So you have to use the merchants at the lower levels to help say, this is
what we're working on, and it had a lot of momentum. And then you have to make sure
to connect to the level above with our like our chief customer officer, Jason Nickel.
And make sure to bridge that very quickly. So you don't lose that momentum. Does that
make sense? Does that answer your question?
Brent Williams 30:30
You certainly did. You know, one thing I was thinking about what we've been talking
about retail, and in your connection into retail, when you think about retail, and
how quickly it's been changing, I mean, there's an omni channel transformation that's
been happening as a, as a producer, and as an a group of brands. How do you think
about that? And how is that affecting you? How do you how do you set a strategy for
that?
Wendy Jean Bennett 30:56
First of all, it's absolutely impacting us, let me be crystal clear. It's it, let
me let me tell you where it was easy and where it's hard. And it's definitely ongoing.
So we did instantly set a strategy, we're a little bit late to the game, but not very,
it was about four years ago, four or five, we already had, I'm gonna say some base,
pictures and images and content and for all of our CPG, like a ballpark a Jimmy Dean,
all of that is going to have all that basic information, because we have excellent
brand marketers who are going to ensure who see the evolving world happen, where we
were stumbling a bit, and we've quickly caught up is on fresh images. So again, we
sell Tyson tray pack, poultry, and we sell as I was saying fresh meat. And so Walmart
expects us to have the images for all the products we do that are even in private
label. So that was the gap that we had a quickly closed and we are still closing.
And then there's been evolution, even if you look online. So at first, you'd see like,
this ugly picture of meat in this like foam tray. And you're like not very attractive.
And now so then it's like, well, let's have a hero picture of the cut of meat and
then or the raw cut of meat and nice put your block next to the package. And now they're
even evolving more of their kind of 3d ish. So if you've seen the latest and greatest
images out there, they're very 3d, you can see that size more I'm sure we've all done
this where you think, oh, I was thinking I was getting maybe a 12 ounce, and it comes
32 ounce, like you couldn't tell the pack size that you were getting from an online
commerce. So you have to build structure, you have to build process, you have to work
with partner agencies to take pictures, do all the work, do all the content. And then
search is so huge in that world, you need to have the right taglines key words to
pop in the algorithms. So literally, we have experts that literally work on that for
our entire portfolio, working to make sure we're relevant because you have to be relevant
in that space. And almost every retailer, every core retailer out there now has some
type of retail media, they are pushing themselves. Walmart Connect is the one locally
but almost like I said, everyone has one where they are saying we get this many shoppers
that come through, we want your brand media to be on our media channels. So that's
been a huge shift from six years ago, or six and a half years ago. Now, when I was
in what was called shopper marketing. Now I'm leading our commerce marketing, that's
the biggest shift is the rise of those retail media networks. And just making sure
we all scorecard it because impressions don't really sell product, right? So at the
end of the day, it doesn't a click rate or, or an impression, aren't the things that
really blow my socks off. In order for us to get more sales, it has to be combined
with seeing the conversion rate seeing the growth happen as well, because otherwise
you can spend endless dollars on search, you know.
Yeah, I think this, my, this numbers a bit old, it's probably a year old. But the last time I looked there was over 600 retail media networks that had been stood up in a relatively short period.
Exactly,
Brent Williams 34:18
quite a quite a phenomenon. When you when you think about how you're going to allocate
dollars, what are like the core metrics and core, maybe even the core capabilities
that you look for amongst those returns?
Wendy Jean Bennett 34:31
Yeah, well A, I want to make sure their score carding, so like I said, there's a lot
that will say we'll give you this many impressions. And like I said, that's great,
that's like the entry level. But we want to get a little bit more sophisticated, and
a little bit more robust, because we want that dollar to be as effective and efficient
as possible for where we can spend that dollar. And we work with Nielsen on MMX and
so one of the big things and I could throw out the challenge. Most of these retailers
aren't using like a third party verification like Nielsen MMX. So there our scorecard
numbers are different. And so we you just need to have that where with all of understanding
so one of the things one of the guidelines we have, I haven't heard this from others
yet. But we say once our search and our once our share, excuse me not our search,
once our share hits on the omni channel, the same as in store, because mostly our
business is still in store, we're not, we're not like Amazon or someone's gone all
ecommerce, it's about 11% of our total sales, right now we see it going to 14. So
once so that's really adequate saying, once our share equals brick and mortar, okay,
then that's enough of that search, like we're going to turn that off and go to another
tactic, because we just don't think we're going to proliferate more beyond that. So
we've been told were the one of the only suppliers that are are doing that, when we
talk to some of these retail media networks, but it is evolving, I think Brent too,
it's going to be a future. You know, we're gonna need some specialists in this field.
And we're actually hiring for those. And it's hard to find there's a lot of brand
marketers it's a lot of marketing, there's a lot of shopper marketing, but this is
a quickly evolving just like we saw with digital and E commerce when that was proliferating.
And now, we're seeing this as it's something in the future that we're gonna have to
help and work together. But we were participating in a lot of them, because a lot
of those are great partner customers of ours, and we're doing a lot of tests and learns.
And I appreciate those retailers being willing to do test and learn and learn together
of how we can make this better and enhance this process over time.
Brent Williams 36:43
Absolutely. We the Walton College released a white paper on sort of the, you know,
the promise and the future of retail media networks. And to your point about talent
and knowledge in this area. That was one thing we heard from our interviews, that
you know, there was a there's a need for the development of talent
Wendy Jean Bennett 37:04
Yeah it's a gap.
Brent Williams 37:05
and knowledge in that area.
Wendy Jean Bennett 37:06
And I think I haven't heard and maybe you can even give me a better source of a great
vision of where we expect this to go. You know, it's it's a revenue stream, I get
the I get wanting to make sure your audience that you're capturing at your local retailer,
you make them privy to this, and you utilize this as best as possible. But I'm not
sure I haven't you know what I haven't seen that like frustrates me personally as
a consumer, but I would love to see it. We're in summer grilling phase, I'd love summer
grilling and grilling out. And they're not connecting some of these mass channels,
their household goods with food, right, like I'm, I am going to need a new grill brush,
a new silicone, you know, slick grill brush to use with my barbecue sauce. And my
chicken or I might need new hot pads or towels or tongs or something like that. And
we're not combining it, the food department is still the food department and this
is still that department. So you know, the whole point of omni channel and frictionless
buying is just that. And so don't segment how you buy, if it's seasonal for that don't
make it food. And I think part of the issue and it happens this way at Tyson, it's
not throwing stones is there's individual VPs of departments that roll up to this.
And so there's this vision, but we really haven't unlocked it because no one's willing
to give up their space on the platform and their pages to make this kind of work.
Brent Williams 38:37
Well. And, you know, I think that I don't know, exactly in a vision, but I feel like
what we heard and, and promoted through that piece of work was really trying to remain
centered on the consumer, you know, if we can remain centered on the needs of the
consumer and creating value for that consumer, ultimately the consumer is going to
win and then and then we're going to win.
Wendy Jean Bennett 39:02
Absolutely. Like I said, it always has to start with the consumer. And I'm always
suspicious of when it doesn't, right. I'm always like, what are you selling? Right?
What's going on here?
Brent Williams 39:12
Well, we've covered a lot in in food, CPG, we've talked about retail, we've talked
about omni channel transformation. I'm going to kind of kind of come back to almost
where we started, a little bit about your journey. And maybe as you think about you
know, as you lead teams and you lead lots of teams with professionals that are building
their careers. What's one or two things that you look back on your career, you really
learn that you think maybe gave you an advantage or can give other people an advantage?
Wendy Jean Bennett 39:48
Oh, I love that question. The first one that instantly popped to mind is a mentor.
So all of my changes in career, big changes so I was in the field working in college
and universities. And literally, I had a mentor who said, you really kind of good
at this marketing stuff. Have you ever thought about marketing? If you've looked at
my degrees Hotel Restaurant Administration, I was not classically trained in marketing.
And I said, yeah, I do have an interest in that. And he said, well, I think we have
an opening, and are you willing to move to our headquarter location, so I had to go
from the west coast to DC. And I'll give you a shot at this. So mentor, having formal
mentors. I think a lot of people have informal mentors, but really formalize it, work
at it. See what areas of interest you have. Because there's one thing learning at
the school, the disciplines of supply chain and logistics and brand marketing, and
but then you get into the business. And it's sometimes it can be different than what
you originally thought, or there might be a new evolving area, right? We've, like
I said, while all these new areas we pointed out that didn't even exist, and like
when we were going to school, so it'll continue to evolve. So make sure you have a
good pulse on where where that lens is, the perspective of business, what areas of
interest you have, what mentors can help you even if you have do informational interviews
or learning, get you connected to that, and then help coach and guide you through
your career. So number one, are, and it took a long time, it wasn't until my 30s until
I had a formal mentor. So I wish I did that sooner. I wish I started saving in my
20s better. And I wish I had formal mentors earlier is the first two things. But that
was the one thing and Paul Davis, my other mentor on the Walmart team when I was on
Walmart Deli. Actually, I he was my mentor because he was D E and I, diversity, equity
and inclusion. And he said I think you should probably be great at retail. And at
that point, I only had foodservice. He said, would you like to come on over to the
Walmart team and do deli because deli acts a lot like foodservice. And I said sure,
you know, I said yes, when those opportunities come at you. And that brought me over
to retail and I haven't left. So those were two really pinnacle points in my career,
one to learn marketing and one to learn retail that were both brought to me by exposure,
by being part of like a business resource group is where I first met Paul. So getting
exposure, networking, and then a mentor. And it might sound cliche, but it really
does work that way. So that's the first thing when you said, the question that really
changed some of my trajectory from that perspective, and I'm trying to think beyond
that.
Brent Williams 42:33
Well I feel like I heard a bit of a second one, which was say, yes, you've said yes
to many different types of challenges. And maybe they weren't always exactly linear.
Wendy Jean Bennett 42:45
Yeah, I am at heart, I'm a curious person. We talked about curiosity, and I'm kind
of a nerd. I'm like a Star Wars geek and Lord of the Rings, and all those kinds of
sci fi and love to read still, so you know, it's the old school stuff. And so I like
a different challenge. So I do like to learn and I like to be challenged. I'm just
I knew I never wanted to be a specialist at something. And I applaud everyone who
does do that and has expertise. And I literally am a jack of all trades, master of
none, because I like being able to because I want to see all the parts to something
to then be able to have, like I mentioned that influence. But there's different career
paths for different people, I mentor people who are experts in IT, and they are just
want to be an IT field. And that's what they want to do. And I completely applaud
that as well. So it's, you know, that's what it's about with diversity, equity and
inclusion is just getting exposure and making sure you're helping people guide you
on the right path. But just make sure you're open to different experiences. And saying
yes, even though it has trials and tribulations, is probably some of the best thing
I've done in my life.
Brent Williams 43:52
Well, what a great way to end. You know, Wendy Jean, I must say thank you for your
leadership and thank you for engaging with the Walton College. Tyson Foods is a wonderful
partner. We have so many alums there and you hire our students. We have interns there
as we speak. So
Wendy Jean Bennett 44:12
we do you do
Brent Williams 44:13
Thank you for that partnership. And thank you for joining us today.
Wendy Jean Bennett 44:18
Well, we love the Walton College. I really have enjoyed my time getting to talk to
you. And heck if anyone out there wants some mentoring or anything else offline, WendyJeanBennett@tyson.com.
So please reach out or reach out on LinkedIn and can connect you.
Brent Williams 44:35
Thank you so much.
Wendy Jean Bennett 44:36
You're very welcome.
Brent Williams 44:39
On behalf of the Walton College thank you for joining us for this captivating conversation,
to stay connected and never miss an episode. Simply search for be epic on your preferred
podcast service.
Brent D. Williams is the Dean of the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas.
With a deep commitment to fostering excellence in business education and thought leadership,
Dr. Williams brings a wealth of experience to his role, shaping the future of the
college and its impact on students and the business community.
