Milling & Baking News - June 3, 2008 - 35

Executive Strategies: Purchasing

cited another, perhaps more important,
benefit from his early-life background.
"It was hard work," he said of the
earlier years. "I grew up in a highly
productive environment that I carried into my purchasing activities
for my entire career."
While at Kansas State, Mr. Stroda
interviewed with a number of companies with various ties to agriculture.
After graduating in 1984, he joined
Ralston Purina as commodity buyer
in Harrisburg, Pa., 30 miles north of
Hanover. There his responsibilities
included the purchase of corn, wheat
and oats as feed ingredients. From
Harrisburg, Mr. Stroda was transferred to Ralston headquarters in St.
Louis where he was a buyer of millfeed and second clears for the company's plants in the Midwest.
He joined Pet, Inc. in 1986 as an ingredient buyer. A consumer products
company, Pet brands included Old El
Paso, Progresso Soups and Underwood meat spreads. He stayed with
Pet until 1992, when the business was
acquired by The Pillsbury Co.
It was on leaving Pet that Mr.
Stroda decided it was time to broaden his procurement experience.
"I knew that if I wanted to make
a career out of purchasing and some
day move into management and
at some point head up a corporate
purchasing department that I would
need to diversify into packaging and

not limit my experience to commodities and ingredients alone. I joined
Hanover Foods Corp. in Hanover,
Pa., as a packaging buyer. They are
a canning and freezing operation of
beans and vegetable products."
He further broadened his experience when he joined AJC International

Pennsylvania pretzels since 1909
The origins of privately held Snyder's of Hanover in the pretzel business date back 99 years
and span a number of Pennsylvania-based companies. In 1909, Harry V. Warehime, founder
of Hanover Canning Co., began producing Olde Tyme Pretzels for the Hanover Pretzel
Co. The Snyder family's business was started in the 1920s when Eda and Edward Snyder
began frying potato chips in their basement. Their son and daughter-in-law operated a
different business, baking angel food cakes, and the companies merged in 1924.
The son, William V. Snyder, modernized and expanded the business. He died of a heart
attack during the 1940s at the age of 45, and the business was sold by the Snyder family to Hanover Canning in 1961. Two years later, Hanover Canning acquired the Bechtel
Pretzel Co. The Bechtel's flagship hard sourdough pretzel is still offered today.
The Hanover snack business was spun off from the original canning business in 1980,
a move the company credits with spurring accelerated growth at both businesses.
The snack company's flagship Hanover baking plant was built originally as a distribution center in the 1980s with tortilla and potato chip production added later. It was
destroyed by fire in 1989, but was rebuilt and currently encompasses a 400,000-squarefoot facility that includes product processing, packaging, and warehousing as well as a
large research and development laboratory.
Snyder's of Hanover has continued to grow over the past 10 years. Its newest plant,
located in Goodyear, Ariz., was built in 1998 and was expanded in 2006 to nearly double its original size. The Hanover headquarters building also opened in 1998 and was
doubled in size in 2007.
In 2007, Snyder's acquired Chicago-based Jays Foods and the former Wyandot Select Snacks production plant in Jefferson, Ind. Brands offered by the business include
Krunchers!, Jays, and O-KE-DOKE. MBN

36 / June 3, 2008

Milling & Baking News

in 1994, an Atlanta-based marketer of
frozen and refrigerated foods, selling
to 100 countries on six continents.
At AJC, Mr. Stroda held positions
in global logistics and procurement.
"With this, I felt I had positioned
my background for management,
to lead a corporate department," he
said. "I was given such an opportunity in 1998 when I became director of
purchasing for Snyder's of Hanover.
Within Snyder's, Mr. Stroda as
purchasing director reports to a corporate executive vice-president. He
oversees purchasing for all three of
the company's plants. The division
includes a group of buyers and senior
buyers, some with responsibility for
ingredients, packaging and contract
manufacturing. The group also includes staff in charge of maintenance,
repair and office as well as miscellaneous. Most of the purchasing staff
offices at Hanover headquarters, but
the company has buyers at its facilities at Jeffersonville, Ind., and Goodyear, Ariz. The entire group includes
nine, including Mr. Stroda.
While the responsibilities he oversees
are diverse, Mr. Stroda said commodity
procurement has been toughest.
"Obviously our largest purchase
is flour, and it has been tough simply because of the market conditions over the past year," he said.
"There always is a silver lining,
which is that as a buyer for a pretzel
bakingbusiness.com / world-grain.com

http://www.bakingbusiness.com http://www.world-grain.com

Milling & Baking News - June 3, 2008

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