Inside Clemens Food Group's 130-Year Legacy

Hello, everyone.

Welcome back to the Spartan Nash Food Solutions Expo.

This is Omnitalk Retail.

I'm Ann Mazinga.

And I'm Chris Walton.

And we are coming to you live from the Symbion Omnitok booth here at the show.

And to kick us off for this next interview, we are pleased to introduce our next guest, Shawn Gerard.

Sean is the regional sales manager for Clemens Food Group.

Sean, thanks for the joining us.

Yeah.

Hey, Ann, thank you for having me on.

I appreciate it.

It's great to have you.

It's great to have you.

Yeah, same to you.

Thank you.

Thanks for having me on.

Yeah, appreciate it.

Thanks for throwing me the boat.

That's great.

So, Sean, food sales.

So how does one get into food sales and talk.

Talk to us about your career trajectory and how you ended up at Clemens Food Group.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Interesting.

It's always interesting to hear, like, how people, you know, get into the food industry.

Right.

Some people kind of stumble into it.

I was more.

A little bit more intentional with it.

I actually got a degree in food marketing.

If you ever knew or thought that was a thing.

I did not know that was a degree.

Okay.

Yeah, yeah.

So Western Michigan University, shout out, Go Broncos.

Makes sense.

Yeah.

So, yeah, in college, you know, I really wasn't sure, you know, what I wanted to do, you know, knew I wanted to be somewhere in the business world.

I was actually working in a restaurant at the time.

Didn't really want to go the culinary route, but kind of saw that, hey, there was this, you know, food marketing program at Western Michigan.

Hey, I like to eat, I like food.

You know, kind of sounded like a cool thing.

Started taking some classes, got really interested in it.

Figured out, you know, the food business, other than, you know, on the culinary side, I hadn't had much experience with, but super fun, exciting.

Everything's always changing.

So, yeah, I finished up my degree at Western and I actually became an intern.

It was Spartan Stores at the time, before Spartan and Nash Finch joined.

So that was my first foray into the business world after college.

Yeah.

And started working for a broker after that.

So kind of the first 10 years of my career on the broker side of the business, which is great.

You get a lot of experience with different clients and manufacturers and retailers all across the store.

I kind of gravitated towards the fresh foods side.

Meat, specifically fresh and packaged meat.

But, yeah, when I was a broker, I knew this was the industry I wanted to be in.

Knew I wasn't going to be on the broker side forever, and had an opportunity to come over on the manufacturer side about five years ago.

And yeah, so most recently with Clemens Food Group for about the last year.

Like I said, fresh meat, packaged meat has kind of always been my background and my passion.

So, yeah, that's kind of how it came to be.

Well, tell us more about Clemons Food.

For those of our listeners who might not be familiar, what kind of products are you working with?

I know some of them, some of our listeners will be very familiar with.

But for those who might not know.

Yeah, so Clemens Food Groups, we are a sixth generation family owned company based out of the Philadelphia area.

So in pork is 100% of what we do.

So we are, we call ourselves vertically coordinated.

Vertically what?

Vertically coordinated.

Yep, yep.

So we own our own farms, we own our own transportation company.

Of course, all our manufacturing is done, you know, in house.

So.

And we sell everything, you know, on the pig from, you know, fresh baby back ribs and pork tenderloins that you'll find, you know, in the meat department to where I'm at more on the packaged food side, which is going to be your, your bacon, your ham steaks, your ham products, things like that.

Okay, so yeah, we sell pretty much everything that comes off the pig.

Yeah.

And it's a very interesting business to be in.

Company's been around 130 years, so we definitely have our expertise in the pork world.

What class in your food marketing degree do you think best prepared you to sell every pork product on the planet?

Yeah, so maybe not specifically pork, but, but there was, you know, the great thing about Western, they have such a specialized food marketing program.

You really get a lot of real world type learning.

So like, like role playing in sales classes was really beneficial to kind of, you know, when you go on your first sales call, you at least kind of have some idea of how the conversation is going to go, questions you're going to get asked.

So I would say like the role play in just like a sales role is what was very beneficial for me.

That's great for those, for those listening.

I was peppering Sean with all kinds of questions about ham yesterday.

So he's very much in the not in know about what hams to buy and whatnot.

So I'm going to take his advice when I get back to Minneapolis.

But to that point, Sean, what, what is a day in the life like for your regional sales manager in the pork industry?

What does your average week look like?

What do you do?

Yeah, well, you know, it's interesting.

No, no, I would say no day is the same, let alone no week is the same.

And it's such a dynamic industry and business because, you know, these animals are, you know, they're alive now and we're going to be, you know, taking those animals to market and, you know, making products out of them, you know, later this week.

And so, you know, it's very fast paced, you know, and like with everything, you know, nowadays there's, you know, we're looking a lot of data and insights to kind of, you know, look at the next, you know, set of trends.

So it's a lot of, you know, customer interactions on a daily, weekly basis, phone conversations, sales calls.

And then there's also, you know, a lot of the internal, like our forecasting and demand planning, trade planning, things like that.

So, you know, very different from week to week and day to day, which I love about the business and it makes it fun and keeps you on your toes.

So no typical day.

Yeah, I wouldn't say typical, no.

And then a day like this, you know, we're at a, you know, a customer, you know, food trough event.

You know, you're talking to customers, end users, you know, definitely not.

I like this versus sitting behind the desk.

Right.

Seem like an extroverted guy, seem like an outgoing guy.

Yeah.

You want to be out there talking to people.

Yeah, yeah.

That's the fun part about it.

And you know, sometimes not enough of that.

Right.

We get stuck behind the desk and behind the computer.

So, you know, days like this are fun.

Well, Sean, you mentioned talking to customers and I'm curious, you know, when you go out into the field, you're talking to people from all different walks of life.

How have you noticed that businesses approach kind of are approaching the future of the industry differently, you know, from say a grocer to a distributor?

How, how, how is that business differentiated in your mind?

Yeah, I mean, I would say definitely nuances to, to every customer out there.

Whether it's, you know, you're looking at one retailer to another retailer or retailer to distributor.

But you know, at the end of the day the, the, the goal is the same to get our products into the hands of the consumer or the end user.

So like I said, nuances with, with different customers in order to do that.

And you kind of got to learn what your customer, distributor, retailer, you know, what buttons to push and what are their, you know, what do they want, what do they need to succeed and how we can best kind of, you know, fit in with that.

So definitely different types of conversations.

I would also say, you know, all customers, you know, you know, they want to feel.

They want to feel like Clemens food group is top of mind for them.

So really, you know, service level, you know, just paying attention to them and answering their questions, asking questions.

You know, I think all customers, you know, want that, you know, want to feel that love right to that point.

Shawn, how do you differentiate pork when you're on a sales call?

Like, what differentiates pork?

Yeah, you know, it's interesting because we have a lot of market dynamics that kind of, you know, go up and down.

You know, one thing right now, if you look at, you know, some of the price and cost of other proteins, pork is a pretty good value right now.

And also, like, with the versatility of what you can use ground pork for, just anything that you could use, you know, ground beef for.

So we really try to hit on, hey, pork's a good, you know, it's a good value, and it's also versatile, too.

So that's definitely, you know, something that our industry is trying to latch onto right now.

And how do you play into trends?

Like, you know, like I was thinking, you know, carnitas, like, you know, is that a big trend?

Is that something you guys look at?

Do you guys do that type of thing?

Or how do you.

How do you approach that?

Yeah, definitely.

And a lot of that sometimes comes through, you know, the food service world, and you see, you know, what's on, you know, what's trending on restaurant menus.

And then, you know, we kind of can take that.

And carnitas is a great example because we have a brand new marinated pork roast that's a carnitas flavor.

So something that you would see, you know, on a restaurant menu that you can take home, you know, buy our product, throw in a crock pot for a couple hours, and it's going to shred up and be a, you know, a great addition to a taco or a burrito or something like that.

So, yeah, differentiation, like I said, a lot of that inspiration is taken from, you know, kind of the food service side, and we try to adapt some of our retail products to.

To fit that need.

Sounds tasty.

Well, Sean, let's close on this.

You know, food safety, I'm sure, is a big part of your job, especially as a producer and making sure that, you know, your products are represented well once they reach the shelves of your customers.

How.

How do those kind of considerations come into your side of the business?

Like, what kinds of things are you thinking about as your.

When it comes to food safety and quality, as you're, you're going into a sales call.

Yeah, definitely.

So food safety is absolutely top of mind for us.

So we have one of our Clemens Way fundamentals kind of talks about food safety is never compromise on food safety.

And we say, hey, if we don't feel comfortable serving this to our own family and friends, we would not want to, you know, sell it to a customer.

So that.

And we've also designed some of our newer production plants with food safety in mind.

So we've kind of taken that approach as we retrofit old facilities and then also the food safety experts as they.

As we develop our newer facilities and how they're laid out and how things, you know, move about from one area to another.

Food safety is always kind of top of mind and under consideration there.

Got it.

That's great to hear.

That's great to hear.

Well, Sean, thanks for joining us today.

Yeah, yeah.

It's been a real pleasure getting to talk to you.

Yeah, Chris, thank you having me on.

This is cool.

This is a fun show, cool event to be at, and it was my first time on a podcast.

This was.

This was fun.

Good maiden voyage.

You got it under the belt.

It's great.

It's great.

Yeah.

Well, and thanks to Simbi and Spartan Ash for allowing us to come and do all these interviews with great individuals like Sean.

And until next time, Anne, be careful out there.