The Main Ingredient of Change

When I became Campbell’s CEO, in 2011, our soup sales in the U.S. were down and our innovation pipeline was virtually dry. More concerning, our people seemed content to rest on our past success. How could we get a 145-year-old company to embrace change?|We started by pointing to the seismic shifts going on around us. We thoroughly assessed the new consumer demographics and behaviors, global economic realignment, and digital revolution profoundly changing the food industry. We studied the evolution of packaged fresh foods in response to health and wellness trends and the expansion of e-commerce and other channels beyond grocery. We stressed that we needed to build on our past to create the future but that we now had a dual mandate: to strengthen our core business with existing consumers while also expanding into faster-growing spaces to attract new consumers.