Meat&Poultry - March 2011 - 32

CEO SERIES

started his career in sales at Kellogg’s, and then moved into the foodservice industry for Pizza Hut and the former Gino Hamburger restaurants. Van Stone graduated from Temple Univ.’s Fox School of Business and Management, and then received his MBA and an advanced degree in fi nance from Philadelphia’s St. Joseph Univ. “I’m not here because of my meat experience. There are plenty of people around with a lot more experience in the meat industry. I’m here because of my experience in leading teams to suc-

“I’m not here because of my meat experience… I’m here because of my experience in leading teams to success in the food industry.”
cess in the food industry,” Van Stone says. “And that’s what the ownership of Alderfer and Leidy’s needed me to do.” In 2004, Alderfer, based in Harleysville, Pa., bought nearby Knauss Meats, a “small” meat processing company based in nearby Quakertown, and well known for making dried beef. A few years later, the owners of the nowenlarged Alderfer Meats and Leidy’s, based five miles away in Souderton, Pa., decided they could do better together than separately. “I was retired at the time, but the owners asked me to come in and help them merge the two companies,” Van Stone recalls. “That was the original

discussion – do this and then go back to my retirement. But then, all of a sudden, some talk began [by the new board of directors] about asking me to run the new company. After giving it some thought, the challenge did interest me,” Van Stone says. “I decided to accept the company’s offer and go ahead and take it on.” Bringing the two fi rms together made sense to the leaders of each. “Both companies have been in business for a long time, and they both did well in their earlier days, in fact, they competed against each other,” Van Stone explains. “But as you know, there’s a lot of consolidation taking place in industry – not just the meat and poultry industry, but in industry in general. It’s harder to compete today. In the case of Alderfer and Leidy’s, one company [Leidy’s] is a slaughterer and a producer of fresh pork. The other [Alderfer] is a further processor. Alderfer products include natural wood smoked hams, bologna, ham steaks, pork roll, smoked turkey bacon and Knauss authentic creamed chipped beef. Leidy’s products include Andouille sausage, smokehouse grill steaks, antibiotic-free cured bacon and spiral carved hams – plus a complete line of fresh pork products. “It’s much harder to compete today, especially for the small to midsize fi rms,” he says. “So the idea of the merger here was to play on the companies’ strengths. One company would have more together than separately, including more impact on the

marketplace. While the two companies market into a good part of the country, their greatest strengths, where the two brands are well-known, is in the Northeast US. “You could describe our company as small to medium-size, probably at the upper end of ‘small,” he says. Van Stone adds the company, which is privately held, does about $100 million in revenue each year, with about 350 full-time employees. A big part of Van Stone’s role is to drive growth. “Like most smaller companies, we look for niches as well, areas bigger groups or companies don’t pursue,” he says. “Since the merger, we now have greater capabilities and flexibility. That significantly improves our capacity to fi ll various niches.” Van Stone points out a few strong and special customer relations have developed since he has been leading the organization. “I can’t get into who they are, but with certain customers, we develop and then process new products for them. We serve as their product development arm,” he says. “Customers might inquire about products, and then we develop and commercialize products for them.” He says in the meat industry, not that much growth takes place, and many smaller companies have fallen by the wayside. “So for bigger companies, especially publicly held ones, acquisition is the easier way to grow. That’s why consolidation takes place. It’s difficult to compete with the larger companies, and because factors like foodsafety standards rise every year – the

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