President, Chief Executive Officer & Chairman, Treehouse Foods
Search every verified Steven Oakland interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. Steven Oakland, President, CEO, and Chairman of TreeHouse Foods, appeared on CNBC's Mad Money in September 2016 and September 2017 to discuss the company's performance and strategy. In 2016, he addressed the acquisition of ConAgra's private label business for $2.7 billion, describing it as a "transformative event" that would double the company's size. He stated that TreeHouse focused solely on customer brands and custom products, and that the acquisition would yield economies of scale, address overengineering in packaging, and simplify operations—citing a reduction from 56 container types to four. He noted that the company was a "favored strategic buyer" in a competitive auction and that retailers had led the emergence of strong private label brands to differentiate themselves from competitors like Walmart and Amazon. In 2017, Oakland reported a quarterly earnings beat and strong full-year guidance, attributing momentum to a renewed focus after the ConAgra carve-out. He stated that private label penetration in the U.S. was 18%, half that of some Western European countries, indicating a "long runway" for growth. He said 20% of TreeHouse's legacy private label offerings were "better for you, natural or organic," growing at a 30% clip. Oakland argued that millennial consumers are "relatively brand agnostic" and have higher preferences for private label than their parents, driving demand for healthy, convenient products. He emphasized that TreeHouse had shifted its industrial base to anticipate market trends and work closely with retailers to develop brand architecture for younger consumers.
“We were overly focused on this corporate carve out from ConAgra; once we realized that was taking people away from their day jobs, we got that group back and in a fury they went about their business.”
“We've dedicated ourselves only to customer brands and having that sole focus is absolutely critical to succeeding here.”
“Private label penetration in the United States is 18 percent, that's half of some Western European countries, which means our stock has a very long runway ahead of it.”
“In our legacy business, 20% of our private label offerings are better for you, natural or organic, and they sell at a 10 percentage point gain over the average.”
“We have 20% of our business growing at a 30% clip now, so private label has become the place where people looking for health and wellness can find products that offer them value without any compromise on food quality, safety, or convenience.”
“Millennials are the coming economic power, and while value is still part of it, their motivation for buying these products is very different; they want better-for-you, healthy products and a totally different lifestyle where convenience is everything.”
“We have changed our industrial base to really focus on where the market is going and try to anticipate that.”
“Well, it's the largest to date. And in context, Jim, we're now 10 times larger in revenues than when we first started the company. It's a transformative event by any definition and in all dimensions.”
“They've established a separate private brands management team in June in preparation for this business, and that team, all of whom will stay with us in the new company, have begun in their first quarter together to show a positive revenue and profit trends.”
“The key here is to have a dedicated business proposition. In our case, we focused only on custom products, customer brands and custom products. We've developed strategies that tie together the economics of a particular product category with the brands of a particular retailer and the set of consumers that use those bra...”
“It's for three factors. First, just the simple size. We will double here and get economies of scale. The second matter is that we found that there is a lot in overengineering and packaging that can be taken addressed and then the single most important factor is regarding simplification.”
“When we acquired it, the business had 56 containers of different sizes and shapes cost. That business now has virtually doubled in size and we have only options of four containers dramatically improving the productivity and the cost structure.”
“We were one of the favored strategic buyers, but I understand that Kaggra indicated that they were a total of as many as 35. And after doing this for a decade, I know that there is always private equity at the ready when opportunities like this present themselves. It was a well-run competitive auction.”
“The extraordinary thing is that it's been the retailers who have led the emergence of the best brands over the last decade or so. At one time, brick-and-mortar retailers were simply warehouses for national brand merchandising and marketing programs.”
“They found that they would be undifferentiated except on price. That, coupled with the emergence of Walmart and Amazon, has led brick-and-mortar merchandisers to make the brands a primary part of their strategies and it has built consumer loyalty, shopper preferences, repeat trials.”
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