Continuing to get (sh)it done helping food & beverage manufacturers in the foodservice space.

As an independent consultant I was hired on contract to assist Elohi Strategic Advisors with some of their client marketing needs. At the end of the contract, they made me an offer to join the company as a full time employee and I accepted.Now I'm working to continue Elohi's mission of "empowering companies to pioneer, develop, and innovate in the foodservice industry" and working with a portfolio of food and beverage clients who offer products that truly are better for you and better for the environment.

After leaving Tyson Foods, I started having former co-workers reach out to me to see if I would be interested in providing some contract marketing consulting assistance. From that I began BlueHawk CPG Marketing Consulting to provide marketing support to consumer product companies. I provided support for annual operating plans, long range strategic planning, new product launches, print & digital media execution, packaging development, sales analysis, agency management, sales material development and many more activities. Clients included Grecian Delight Foods, Sara Lee Frozen Bakery, and Tyson Foods Retail.

Starting with Hillshire Brands, my marketing responsibility involved the Foodservice hot dog, smoked sausage, cocktail link, and breakfast sausage categories, including the Ball Park, Hillshire Farm, and Jimmy Dean brands as well as various operator/distributor products for Sysco, US Foods, Waffle House, Dunkin Donuts, Speedway, Circle K and others. Combined, the categories accounted for over $400MM in annual sales across all Foodservice channels. I led and supported cross-functional teams to develop and launch several new products including Hillshire Farm Split Chicken & Apple Sausage, Jimmy Dean Breakfast Sandwich Links, Italian Sausage for Gordon Foodservice, as well as renovating several Hillshire Farm products to remove MSG and Jimmy Dean products to reduce sodium. With the Tyson Foods acquisition of Hillshire Brands in 2014, a reorganization allowed me to focus solely on the newly combined breakfast sausage portfolio, which was one of the largest categories in the Prepared Meats business unit and a designated focus category. I was able to spend more time on the long-term strategy of the category and grow the health of the Jimmy Dean brand. In addition to several product cost saving/profit improvement projects, I led the renovation of the entire Jimmy Dean Foodservice portfolio to gluten free and launched new Jimmy Dean All-Natural Chicken Breakfast Sausage and new Jimmy Dean All-Natural Lower Sodium Breakfast Sausage. Between fiscal 2016 and 2017, category volume grew by over 7% and sales by over 12%, exceeding budget goals and market trends."(Brent) also worked very well with cross-functional teams and was very responsive on all projects. He is detail oriented and always works to understand the messaging for our sales teams and our customers."

Starting with Sara Lee, as Customer Marketing Manager I worked closely with Category Marketing and Sales on category management initiatives for the Convenience Store channel and delivered go-to-market activation strategies. Mostly I was supporting the beverage categories, including the Douwe Egbert coffee/cappuccino brand and the Pickwick tea brand, but also assisted with the meat and bakery categories including the Ball Park, State Fair, Hillshire Farm and Sara Lee brands. I spent considerable time on-site with a large key customer, Speedway, collaborating closely with their marketing team to supplement their aggressive 7-year strategic category growth plan. In my role I managed and updated proprietary Category Leadership Program (CLP) sales tools for the beverage category which provided a competitive advantage and established the company as the category expert. Additionally, I successfully led the execution and participation in several industry trade show events, including the annual National Association of Convenience Stores (NACS) show.The Foodservice Customer Marketing team was unique in that we were involved with all three Foodservice business units; meat, bakery and beverage. After a decision was made in 2011 to spin off the beverage business as a separate company, the Customer Marketing team reorganized. My manager took on ownership of supporting the meat/bakery categories while I took on ownership of supporting the beverage categories. Several months later, Sara Lee sold the North American Beverage business to J.M. Smucker, thus beginning my transition to performing the same Customer Marketing Manager role as part of the Smucker team. "(Brent) is a unique blend of a great strategic mind plus out of the box, creating thinking. He will always find a new approach to a challenge, or different & better way of communicating a solution. He is smart, a quick study, extremely attentive to details and always helps to makes me better in my job."

Upon making the move from the Sales team to the Marketing team with Maple Leaf Bakery, I took on the retail marketing ownership for a few different categories including bagels, croissants, flat breads, and the Wholesome Harvest brand of sandwich/specialty breads. These categories accounted for over $77MM annual retail sales in the USA, Canada and Asia and I delivered double digit annual gross profit growth. I led several cross-functional teams to ideate, develop and launch new items into the retail market. These items included a new line of pre-packaged mini bagels, a line of “better for you” bulk bagels branded as Skinny Bagels, a new line of specialty rolls branded as Bistrolls, and line-extensions to the Wholesome Harvest sandwich breads. Additionally, I generated a $1MM improvement in profit by transforming Walmart bagels from in-store packaged to pre-packaged.In addition to delivering various marketing materials, providing merchandising solutions, managing the promotion calendar, and performing on-going portfolio optimization, I also improved operations efficiency and increased production capabilities/capacity by leading a Six Sigma project to outsource flatbread production and relocate bagel production from one plant to another.

Originally I was brought into Maple Leaf Bakery in a new role as a Sales Analyst to support the Walmart/Sam’s Club Sales Director with Walmart’s Retail Link data and other secondary research data sources. My role quickly evolved into a more traditional sales role supporting the Walmart and Sam’s Club business and my title was changed to Account Sales Manager. Later I took on direct management of a team of ten Field Sales Managers who were a part of the Walmart/Sam’s Club sales team. In 2003 category sales in Walmart stores increased by 15% and Maple Leaf Bakery was named a “Supplier of the Year”.

A dot-com startup company at the time I joined, MyWebGrocer started out by providing brick-and-mortar grocery retailers an easy, low risk, turn-key solution for offering on-line shopping to their customers. While the company is based in Vermont, the President of the company at the time lived in the Chicago area and was hiring Account Managers locally for his direct team that was responsible for developing the client implementation and operation of the new e-commerce service. Being a young start-up company, it was necessary to wear many hats and create the first tools required to grow the business. Collaborating with some of the other Account Managers, we authored the first internal Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) and Client Operating Guide as well as represented the company to prospective clients at trade shows and industry events. During my time with MyWebGrocer I oversaw the full launch and ongoing support of online shopping solutions for nine retail grocery clients in the Midwest and East Coast. I enabled clients to build a profitable and sustainable online shopping business through the creation of customized marketing materials, brochures, press releases, and ad copy."Brent helped us develop and penetrate a number of critical accounts. Calm, responsible and confident, he was a great fit to give a young company a professional face."

Managed relationships and provided marketing research services to clients in several industries including dairy, greeting card, candy/confection, and household cleaning supplies.

Responsible for creating and delivering syndicated marketing research databases and reports to several clients on a regular and ad hoc basis.