Food Business News - May 21, 2013 - 16

Hain Celestial optimistic about
opportunities in the United States
Sees plenty of opportunity even as it focuses on Europe

NEW YORK — While furthering its footprint in the United Kingdom remains a goal
for The Hain Celestial Group, the Lake
Success, N.Y.-based company believes the
United States is just as ripe for growth.
In a May 14 presentation at the BMO Farm
to Market Conference in New York, John
Carroll, executive vice-president of Hain
and chief executive officer of Hain Celestial
United States, said he is asked often whether Hain is bullish about the United States.
“The answer is yes,” he said. “I mean, we
really believe the bull will snort, and it always does. We really believe there is a lot
more opportunity for us in the U.S.”
He identified several reasons for his
optimism, beginning with the fact few categories are growing as fast as natural and
organic.
“We’re in an on-trend category,” he said.
Innovation and sales force organization continue to drive consumption, Mr.
Carroll said.
“We always need to be pushing innovation,” he said, pointing
to products such as Greek Gods
kefir, MaraNatha coconut butter
and Garden of Eatin’ chia tortillas
as examples. Mr. Carroll mentioned that chia “is a commodity
on fire,” and Hain is in the process
of developing a domestic source
of chia, a move he believes will
make Hain one of the first companies to do so, and a move that
ultimately will increase the company’s chia supply.
In terms of sales force, Mr.
Carroll said Hain is able to do
what a lot of other natural and

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organic companies cannot — find the top
customers and build teams around them.
“If you want to play beyond natural,
that’s what the major supermarkets, mass
merchandisers and others are looking for,”
Mr. Carroll said. He noted Hain has a team
in Bentonville, Ark. (for Wal-Mart), a team
in Minneapolis (for Target), a team in Cincinnati (for Kroger) and a team in Florida
(for Publix).
“We are focused and dedicated to driving
business in these accounts, and we’re seeing the results of it,” he said.
Acquisitions also are a key component to
success in the United States, including two —
BluePrint and Ella’s Kitchen — that have taken
effect in the past six months, Mr. Carroll said.
“BluePrint juice is a fresh, pressed raw
and organic juice used both for cleansing
and regular juice consumption,” Mr. Carroll
said. “These products are spectacular, and
what we like about this business is twofold. One, we see great top-line distribution

opportunities. One of our key strategies is
to find businesses with a lot of distribution
runway, put them through our sales force,
which I talked to you about previously, and
drive growth. We’ve seen since we have
added this business that we’ve added five to
six new Whole Foods regions, we’re about
to do a test in a major Northeast retailer
and we really think this business is poised
to grow significantly not only in natural but
also in key strategic grocery partners.”
Meanwhile, the acquisition of Ella’s
Kitchen, a maker of organic baby food with
80 products offered in the United Kingdom,
the United States and Scandinavia, is seen
as a high-growth complement to Hain’s
Earth’s Best business, he said.
“We like the Ella’s business so much,
we’re actually going to create a global infant
feeding unit with Ella’s and Earth’s Best,”
Mr. Carroll said. “The important thing about
Ella’s and Earth’s Best is as you go through
the product lines and you look at the customers in terms of consumers, there’s not
a lot of overlap because Ella’s was the first
premium baby food in a pouch. Earth’s Best
is the leading organic baby food in both the
pouch and the jar.”
Mr. Carroll said there is “an opportunity
to drive enormous synergies” both on a revenue basis as well as on the margin side.
A final reason Hain continues to be bullish
on the U.S. market is productivity savings.
Over the last four or five years, Mr. Carroll
said Hain has driven a compound annual
growth rate of more than 27% in productivity
savings, to over $20 million this year.
He said the company’s move to bring
Earth’s Best pouch production in-house
has generated significant savings and has
allowed Hain to be more competitive.
The company also has
found ways to drive savings
through plant utilization and
logistics. Mr. Carroll cited the
company’s decision to go to a
24/7 production plan at its MaraNatha nut butters plant in
Ashland, Ore., as an example.
“Basically every ounce of
overhead is utilized and double utilized to drive this business to the point where we’re
saying, ‘okay, guess what, we
can actually now go and look
for more capacity because
we’ve used everything we can
here,’” he said. FBN

May 21, 2013

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