CEO (Coffee Operating Unit / future Global Coffee Co.) & Executive Director, JDE Peet's (Coffee Operating Unit of Keurig Dr Pepper / future Global Coffee Co.)
Leader Weekends: How to be a CEO (Kraft Heinz’s Rafael Oliveira)
Listen here: https://pod.fo/e/1ae268 Rafael Oliveira is International Markets President at Kraft Heinz, which has operations in more ...
About Rafa Oliveira
Rafael Oliveira, President International of Kraft Heinz at the time of the appearances, discussed the company's partnership with musician Ed Sheeran to launch a hot sauce brand called Tingly Ted's. He stated that Sheeran had the idea for the sauce and the brand name, and that Kraft Heinz developed the product as "sauces experts" while Sheeran owns the brand. Oliveira also commented on the global cost of living crisis, saying that challenges such as ingredient costs, supply chain disruptions, and labor uncertainty are "happening across the globe" and that the company aims to "balance to do the best thing for our consumers on the long term." In a 2020 interview, Oliveira reflected on the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, stating that he initially thought it would be contained like SARS and that he "could have probably gained a couple of weeks" if he had acted on his early knowledge of the virus's spread. He also discussed his management approach, emphasizing the importance of understanding each team member individually to motivate them effectively, and contrasted this with his experience in investment banking, where he said "most of the people care more about money."
Transcript (19 segments)
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David Marsland0:03
From the Evening Standard in London, I'm David Marsland and this is The Leader Weekend. Every Saturday we bring you a bonus episode of our business podcast How to Be a CEO. This is a cut-down version, so hit the link in the show notes to hear the full thing or search your podcast provider for How to Be a CEO. There are new episodes every Monday morning.
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Narrator0:22
I need you. Heinz's latest marketing campaign is about irrational love. A commercial inspired by real tales of super fandom for the brand shows people dipping their ice cream in tomato ketchup, sneaking sachets of the stuff into fancy restaurants, and even getting tattoos. I wonder where that story came from.
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Rafa Oliveira0:42
Ed Sheeran has a tattoo of a Heinz ketchup in his arm. You can Google it, you see. I mean, and it was not paid or asked by us at all. I mean, he did it on his own and is a big tattoo, it's not like a tiny one.
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David Marsland0:57
Rafa Oliveira is the International Markets President of Kraft Heinz, which earlier this year teamed up with Ed Sheeran to launch a range of hot sauces called Tingly Ted's. Over 150 years, the brand has developed a customer loyalty that's the envy of rivals and the inspiration of many a marketing team. But surviving that long comes with challenges. Right now, perhaps the biggest one is the global cost-of-living crisis. How do you keep a family favorite affordable and a cheaper alternative off the table?
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Rafa Oliveira1:26
I mean, it's something that you struggle again with creativity. How do you develop new packs, new price points, but at the same time allow us to continue investing in the business, in our brands, and in our people. So, it is a challenge. I mean, but again, that's what we are here for.
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David Marsland1:47
I'm David Marsland from the Evening Standard. There's lots to talk about with Rafa, from how his upbringing in Brazil taught him how to negotiate with people to what's the best way to get ketchup out of a glass bottle. But this show is called How to Be a CEO. And while we're always asking about those big difficult issues, and we'll do that again here. I don't think we ask the simple stuff enough. Like what does the international markets president of an organization as big as Kraft Heinz actually do on a typical day?
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Rafa Oliveira2:14
Well, the day has been good. I mean, we always when the days that I have the chance I'm not traveling, so I have the chance to come to the office is always good because then I see my team, I see the colleagues, and I see everybody. I'm always in calls with different people around the globe. So it started with a call with our president for Asia in the morning, and then I had a call with my leadership team, which includes people from Asia, from Australia, from Latin America, Middle East. So spread out across the globe. And then had a couple business reviews. But more important, like walking around the office is what really gives me energy. So I love being here.
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David Marsland2:54
How many offices do you have to walk around though, Rafael? I mean, you're based in London, I think. But where you know, you presumably you head out and visit all of these places that you're around, do you?
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Rafa Oliveira3:05
We are present in over 50 countries. Depends on how you look at it because there are some offices where we are sitting on a distributor office, so it's not really our office, but it's our people there. You have factories, they have office inside a factory or not. But I mean, we look around between 25 and 30 offices. Plus we have 43 factories not including North America. So outside North America, we have 43 factories and between 25 and 30 offices.
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David Marsland3:32
So what's interesting to me about this and the kind of international role that you have is that tastes in different countries and different areas must be completely different. How does one person keep on top of all of those different cultures and all of those different markets that Kraft Heinz enters into and understands them all?
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Rafa Oliveira3:56
But that's the beauty of it. I don't need to keep track of every single one myself. I just have a team that does it, you know? The beauty of it is to be able to organize a team that keeps track of all this, and then I manage to support them. So, the reality is I love food. I love to understand the different as you expect as you mentioned the different types of food, the different like the dynamics, the trends that are happening. But the reality is it would be humanly impossible to keep track of everything. So, the key of the job is actually to have a team that you trust and that you build like the best team that work together. And this team builds a team further, and so this power exponentially grows. And then these people in the local markets will understand the real trends, what's going on, and build on top of everything.
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David Marsland4:52
Now, we do have the cost of living crisis here in the UK. And you know, a food company, like you said, food is so important. It has a role to play. How does a company like yours, I guess, judge the need for the business to do well a lot, but also provide value for customers? There must be some difficult decisions being made by you.
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Rafa Oliveira5:14
This challenge is happening across the globe. I remember I look after many different countries. We with our team and we are a company, we are present in many different countries. And frankly, this challenge is happening everywhere. I mean, cost of ingredients, disruption in supply chain, labor uncertainty is happening on different scales, but across the globe. And I mean, we are always trying to balance to do the best thing for our consumers on the long term. And so, what we can do to make our products accessible, and then still allow consumers to enjoy. I mean, it's something that you struggle again with creativity. I mean, creativity is not only on communication, but how do you develop new packs, new price points that allow consumers to enjoy the products, but at the same time allow us to continue investing in the business and our brands and our people. So, it is a challenge. I mean, but again, that's what we are here for, you know, continue to delight our consumers.
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David Marsland6:22
Okay, let's go to the ads. Now, How to Be a CEO is really growing, and we're all dead excited that most of the people listening are followers of this show. It's nice to know Heinz isn't the only one with a loyal fan base. So, thank you. Now, go tell your friends. I can probably stop saying hit your follow button now with every ad break, but there's a few stragglers out there. So, hit your follow button. Back in a sec.
One that I've been doing some research into what you guys have been doing across markets. And one thing I might be just inventing this. I might have just completely made this up, and it might all just be total coincidence. But, it seems to me that Heinz has been investing in a lot of spices recently. A lot of companies that you've been acquiring have spice in their ingredients. Did I just imagine this, or is Kraft Heinz kind of looking at making things a bit spicier these days?
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Rafa Oliveira7:20
We are always looking to make things spicier. That's definitely true. But, what you're probably coming from is we made an acquisition called a company called Just Spices at the end of 2021 in Germany, originally from Germany. We have a focus, a big focus in what we call taste elevation. Taste elevation is effectively everything that consumers use to elevate the taste of food, right? And then the most obvious thing you think about is sauces. I mean sauces are a taste elevation product. Spices are the additional one. And then you could go from this to bouillons to stocks and other things that elevate the taste of food. That's the core of our company in terms of core competencies. It is where we have the knowledge, the R&D, the consumer trends understanding. We have the brands that operate the supply chain facilities. So that's what we really understand. We believe better than anyone across the globe.
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David Marsland8:23
It wasn't just spices on its own. You also have the deal with Ed Sheeran.
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Rafa Oliveira8:27
Yeah, as you might know, Ed Sheeran has a tattoo of a Heinz ketchup in his arm. You can Google it, you see. I mean, and it was not paid or asked by us at all. I mean, he did it on his own years ago for his love of ketchup, you know, Heinz ketchup. Three years ago we did a campaign with him where actually using his creativity to do a with Heinz ketchup, you know, like showing his love of Heinz ketchup. And we kept in touch since then. On a conversation our team had with him about a year ago, sometime ago he mentioned that he had this idea for a hot sauce and a brand which is this bear who is his nickname and childhood nickname. And he had even the name already thought in mind and he said casually like on a conversation with our team that he had this dream of doing a hot sauce. Our team caught this concept very quickly, came back to him with a proposal saying why don't we make this hot sauce for you. And he loved the idea. We started this partnership. So we are developing the product for him as sauces experts, but he is the real owner of the face of the brand. It has been going really well, so we've launched already in the UK, in Germany, and we are launching as he makes the concerts across the globe, and it will be available everywhere in the globe.
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David Marsland9:57
That was Rafa Oliveira from Kraft Heinz. You can get all the latest interviews, news, and analysis from our top team of the Evening Standard every day. Pick up the newspaper or go to standard.co.uk/business.