Heinz has seen a lot of press lately following its acquisition in 2013 by Berkshire Hathaway and 3G Capital for $US28 billion – the largest food company acquisition to date. With Warren Buffet as an investor, it's likely the press will continue.
Now those investors would like to see a reward for their faith in Brand Heinz. The new leadership is challenging the way Heinz thinks about business, and there's a drive across the global group to bring manufacturing to the highest possible quality at the lowest possible price – no surprises there.
How this translates is into a directive to leverage core brands globally to drive return for the business. It also means a strong drive for innovation, and in the realm of packaging, the call is to identify easy-to-commercialise technologies and formats that can be brought to market quickly and profitably.
This was the word from Cameron Dellar, Heinz ANZ packaging innovation manager, speaking at the PCA Industry Leaders Forum on 5 April.
He said Heinz currently has several major packaging suppliers, and a significant number of smaller suppliers of components. It has a total of 1500+ SKUs and 2700+ packaging specifications. "That's a lot of resource time spent managing these specifications," he said.
"We're developing a pipeline of innovations with each major supplier and we aim to have developed 20+ innovations in the next 18 months," he said. "We're also actively looking to identify niche players in various areas of packaging or equipment supply to work with us to develop new solutions.
"Our approach is 'no limits', and we're open to any new ideas, including collaboration with other manufacturers," he said.
As a case in point he referred to the development of Plant Bottle, which Heinz undertook in collaboration with Coca-Cola and other stakeholders in 2011.
Sharing of packaging knowledge with a view to leveraging packaging innovation across the company's global platforms will be a focus, and the company will be using global benchmarking to ensure best in class supply.
"We'll be looking to create technology relationships," he said, "with a shift in focus to packaging or equipment design customised to Heinz specific requirements."
Vertical integration with equipment suppliers would be considered, he said.
To suppliers his message was clear: "Bring your new ideas, even if they are not fully developed, as Heinz is also taking a longer term view on innovation delivery, and innovation in packaging is one of the core pillars.
"Don't limit yourself to an ANZ focus; the group expectation is that innovation should be able to be rolled out globally. Use your global reach to support your own innovation."
He pointed out that there's a huge advantage if you're a supplier to Heinz in ANZ, because the size of this market allows Heinz ANZ to be a highly adaptive 'pilot line' for USA or Europe.
"Across the group, we're known as the Pilot Plant of the Pacific," he said.
"This gives us the opportunity to assess new innovation, and then advise the global teams of its applicability," Dellar said.
Success will come from being adaptive in packaging innovation, he said, and teaming up with the right suppliers will be key to that success.
