Meat+Poultry - June 2020 - 32

CEO SERIES

A perfect
score
Emily Detwiler is well equipped to
lead the KCBS into the smoky future
BY J O E L C R E WS | j c r e w s @ s o s l a n d.c o m

M

32

MEAT+ POULTRY | 06.20 | www.meatpoultry.com

brought with her a wide breadth of food
marketing experience.

HIGH ON HOGS
Thanks to some of the connections she made
during those years that led her to a marketing
position with Smithfield Foods Inc., starting
out as senior brand manager in 2015.
"I knew a lot about marketing and a little bit
about meat," Detwiler said, "and that's actually
exactly what they needed at the time."
She joined the company with a goal of
taking a CPG approach to branding Smithfield's
commodity-based fresh pork products. For
a company the size and scope of Smithfield,
that meant Detwiler was the lead on almost
every marketing effort, from media buying
to the company's NASCAR promotions and
sponsorships in addition to leading efforts
under the broad heading of barbecue.
At that time, Smithfield had begun to
establish a preliminary relationship with
the KCBS. Detwiler saw this as a golden
opportunity for Smithfield to collaborate
more and strengthen a mutually beneficial
partnership. To learn more about the world
of competition barbecue, Detwiler immersed
herself in that arena.
"I started going to quite a few of the
barbecue contests," she said, "so that I really
understood what was happening."
Finding a KCBS competition wasn't
difficult, given the fact that the association
sanctions about 500 barbecue contests each
year. Detwiler said attending the events gave
her a taste for the culture and gave her a

Photos: Kansas City Barbeque Society

KCBS co-founder Carolyn
Wells (right) was happy
to pass the torch to Emily
Detwiler in 2019.

arketing meat was probably not a
career that was on Emily Detwiler's
short list of dream jobs as a young
girl growing up in the Midwest. But it proved
to be a fruitful profession for the eager-to-learn
Nebraska native, whose career path wound
from the retail sector to the pork industry
and most recently to the position of leading
the Kansas City Barbeque Society (KCBS), as
its first-ever chief executive officer.
Detwiler earned a marketing
degree at Drake University
after her family moved
to Iowa when she was
growing up. She moved
to Kansas City after
graduating to work
for a couple of years
before deciding to
go back to school,
earning a master's
in marketing and
management from the
University of Missouri.
After stints working
back in KC in brand
management and marketing
roles with American Dairy
Brands and Hostess, Detwiler spent
about seven years working in retail private
brand marketing with Daymon Worldwide.
It was there she got her first opportunity
to promote some meat brands while living
and working in Connecticut. Moving back
to Kansas City again in about 2014, to
accommodate her husband's job, Detwiler
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