Meat+Poultry - October 2019 - 35

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brought strange looks early in the process.
Russell mentions the early years when product
variety was abundant, but how that variety was
possibly a crutch.
Early in his career as a salesman for the
company, Russell saw the broad offerings
as a way to get a sale. If a customer didn't
like a product, he could reach into his bag
and pull out a different one until he found
something the customer liked. Now he looks
at the business from a different perspective.
He's more interested in a healthy organization
overall. Russell says after 22 years he has more
operations savvy and has "...the team in place
that's open minded enough to take this on."
Putting together the right team to
achieve greatness in an area means everyone
understands and agrees to the discipline,
acceptance of certain necessary compromises
and a dedication to exact execution. The team
at Cloverdale also accepts bacon as the focus
of that dedication.
"It begins to be almost an overwhelming
math problem to try and think how we can do
that across multiple products," Russell says.
"So again, we are really fortunate that we have
such a good group of people in place to help
think it through."
Because of Cloverdale's multi-generational
family roots, its legacy business and products
had considerable support both inside and
outside of the company. Customers and
employees expect certain products whether
efficient in production and process or not.
When Russell first began to talk about possibly
eliminating certain items from the mix, his
ideas were not always met with smiles.
"There's this nostalgia around that legacy
business and it's difficult to even raise the
discussion of divesting it," Russell says. "I
remember a decade ago when I started to
say things like, 'I'm not sure we should do
this anymore,' and I just felt the room look
awkwardly at me. It was really uncomfortable
and personally I probably grew a bit of a shell
around me for a while and thought, 'oh boy,
I guess we're not going to do that and we're
going to continue to go this way.'"
As time went on with Russell in the role of
president and CEO, he began to see more how
Cloverdale could change its bacon processing,
as well as success in the category and the

"If you can find
certain points of
differentiation,
it's not a category
that's entirely
commoditized."
- SCOTT RUSSELL

category's continued growth.
"It's growing and there's still an
opportunity," he says. "If you can find certain
points of differentiation, it's not a category
that's entirely commoditized."
By moving more time and resources toward
bacon production, Russell and his team could
create something special, but it means some
of the legacy business will have to change.
The team feels they can scale the bacon, "...
put good intentions around it," and make it a
national seller.
Cloverdale has utilized its vendors to
introduce the company to a large group of
specialized consultants to guide it through the
process of crafting high-end bacon. Cloverdale
takes the suggestions and implements them to
work on creating true craft bacon products.
"We've spent a significant amount of time in
that category, in that area, but it's all been with
intent," Russell says.
For Russell, his executive team and
everyone with an interest in Cloverdale,
the future appears to include more bacon.
Regardless of how much it finally increases
bacon production, currently the company is
well equipped with three Thurne bacon lines
and a Cashin bacon line. The processor will be
deliberate and informed with its decisions.
"It's an exciting time," Russell says. "It's a
challenging time as well."
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Meat+Poultry - October 2019

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