Jack Behrend Collection

Beatrice Foods Company

Transcript (Download)

This is where it all begins, out here on the land, in this fertile soil.

The soil never ceases to amaze me to think that so much can come from so little.

Scientists explain it as soil chemistry.

I have to tell you, I think it's a miracle.

The soil is a natural resource.

It's a natural resource.

I think the key to the real success of agriculture in this area and in our country is the people.

The people really make it happen.

These farmers and our milk processors are true professionals.

They have to be meteorologists on the one hand, soil experts, and constantly dealing with the trends in the marketplace.

We work hard at it.

We are a very much community -oriented type of company.

And I'm not just talking about Greeley or any of the plants here.

All of the smaller dairies are community -oriented and contribute substantially to the economic base of the community.

We see some changes going on in the food business today.

We think that a brand that's not in the number one or number two share position is in danger of losing distribution.

We have our major products within that position right now.

And any new product that we would bring in in the near future would be one of our major goals for that product.

We make those products from scratch.

We take in milk direct from the farm and dry that milk for Swiss mess.

We keep it in a fluid state for putting.

About 75 % of our sales are in the branded products area, competing against some very major companies within the food business, such as Carnation and our friends Nestle in the cocoa mix business, and Hunts, Del Monte, and Rich's in the refrigerated pudding area.

We've got an active new products program, counting on several of those products being successful for us, at least at this stage of the game.

We feel that's where our strength is and where our growth is going to come from.

Our business is to produce equipment for the storage and the handling of cryogenic liquids, liquid oxygen, liquid nitrogen, argon, helium for the industrial gas industry.

This equipment is primarily very sophisticated thermos bottles.

The equipment that we build for handling liquid helium is so sophisticated that if it were filled with boiling coffee, it could hold that coffee at drinkable temperatures for 75 years.

At MBE, we never design equipment.

We react and we interact with our customers to determine exactly what's needed in the marketplace.

Then we design it and build it.

MBE has been involved in the export markets almost since the inception of the company.

We export to markets as diverse as Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, New Zealand, Australia, Malaysia, Indonesia, Hong Kong, the world.

It really is amazing when one thinks back that in the 40 years this company grew out of a small house in the suburbs of Caracas up to being now the leader in this field in this country.

But being the leader, of course, gives us the duty to stay the leader.

And we only can do that by renewing our ideas, by creating new lines.

And one of the things which we have not been doing sufficiently well up to the moment has been marketing, which we thought we could handle on a rather amateur way.

We now find because of the closeness of the international markets, because of the reduction of the import duties, we find ourselves in competition with the international companies, which makes creating a full -fledged professional marketing department the main priority in our near future plans.

Machines you can buy, buildings you can build, systems you can get the lease on.

You cannot buy or build people you have to motivate.

Martha White Foods is the manufacturer of baking needs, primarily for the housewife's table.

Over 50 % of our volume is in things such as biscuits, cakes, and pies, and good old cornmeal.

And last but not least, we're the second largest producer of grits in the United States, a Southern delicacy.

You know, we've had a lot of success here at Martha White.

We're awfully proud of that, as we are of this plant here in Jackson, Tennessee.

We sell over a million packages of products a day, and certainly we hope to double that in the next couple of years.

You know, Martha White is a lot like Beatrice Foods.

We've grown over the years with acquisitions.

We have a diversified product line.

Our young managers are very profit -oriented.

We let our companies manage themselves as far as possible, and we expect them to get the job done.

I wonder what my brother and I actually thought about, or if we did think about such things, 15 years ago when we first decided this is the way to go.

That graphite, high -modest material was material of the future.

We sure were right, even more right than we even thought.

It's material that's considerably lighter than steel, has comparable strength.

It's lighter than aluminum, but different than aluminum and steel.

It does not fatigue.

Looking at a picture now of the Lear -Avia plane, which all the composite structures are made out of graphite.

Mr.

Lear had a lot of foresight when he designed that plane.

Both the last two space shuttles was full of our material.

We've been on the moon with our material.

We've been to Mars.

We've been to Saturn.

Before we're through, I think we'll be at all the planets that we thus know about.

Fibrate has some competition.

Success breeds competition.

That is why we keep developing the secret on which we based our business.

That's continued research and development and develop our productivity to the point where our competition is not going to be able to keep up with us.

So far as competition, yes, there's competition.

I don't know who they are.

Welcome to Sugar Bar Ranch, the home of Jolly Rancher Candies.

Jolly Rancher Candies was founded by my parents in 1950.

I started with the company as a small boy when we made candy in 40 pound copper kettles.

We now produce over 150 ,000 pounds of candy a day continuously.

We're a major factor in the candy industry today and we do ship nationally and are working on programs to export overseas.

We're the fifth largest supplier in 10 cent, 15 cent, and 25 cent bar merchandise.

We have over 400 original oil paintings in our offices.

My parents started collecting Western art over 20 years ago.

We have over 40 trailers and we've used the original paintings and had them duplicated on the sides of our trucks.

And it's created quite a bit of excitement going up and down the highways.

We've won several awards for our packaging with the Western art incorporated into it and it has developed a lot of enthusiasm in the industry.

We have a team here at Jolly Rancher that believes in winning and they all believe in marketing and that's what it really takes today.

I'm originally from Ogden, Utah.

I've traded the Rocky Mountains for this beautiful view of the Chicago skyline.

There's nothing more exciting to me than developing a product, of producing that product, and then marketing that product.

Stiffle is the Mercedes -Benz of the lamp industry.

We are continually looking at the marketplace and our product line to see how we can take even more advantage of the great Stiffle name.

We believe historically Stiffle has served a very narrow segment of the lamp industry.

With the great name that Stiffle has in lighting and lamps, we feel like we have a great growth opportunity in other segments of the lamp market.

With the high cost of raw materials and the inflationary economy, the only way to remain competitive within any industry is productivity improvement.

We've just got to look at smarter ways to produce a quality product at less cost and that's where we're concentrating our efforts.

When you think of Samsonite luggage, you think of a company which manufactures and distributes consumer products that satisfy the needs and wants of consumers throughout the United States as well as throughout the world.

When you think about a consumer goods company, you think about marketing as being a very important element of the total operation.

Marketing consists of not only sales and distribution, but also research, design, product planning, development engineering, materials and the final production itself.

Our first priority is delivering a quality product.

Quality and durability is the franchise which Samsonite has earned over the years with our consumers.

We also have a priority associated with our dealers and that is the requirement that we fill their orders completely in the time frame which they want them filled.

We have a third priority we pay a great deal of attention to and that is the responsibility for managing our assets.

This is a franchise with our parent company, Beatrice Foods.

They've helped us find good people.

Beatrice has been instrumental in giving us the capital to get the necessary funds.

Reach that position.

By the bankers, with the consideration.

Gives us the strength to improve our operation.

We never would have experienced the growth that we've experienced.

We make a smart move in letting us run the company.

We make our own decisions.

Basically being a part of Beatrice Foods I think has given us more of an opportunity to eliminate risk.

In 1797, my great great grandfather started a brewery business and now 185 years later, Stella Winters is involved in the same company.

What is now a soft drink business? The Winters production operation consists of two bottling lines, three canning lines and two lines for plastic caps.

The canning operation was in 1981 a capacity of over 160 million cans is about 90 % for the export.

There are many definitions of marketing.

In former days, marketing was more product orientated.

Whereas at this moment it is more orientated to the wishes and the needs of the consumer.

And also long run consumer and public welfare is important.

My grandfather who was a veterinarian founded Vigor Tone in 1912.

And as he made calls out on the farm he noticed that the livestock ate dirt, fence posts and other materials.

And he felt that they were short of some type of nutrition.

And so he put together a combination of vitamins and minerals which eliminated that problem.

Probably one of the biggest advantages that Vigor Tone has over supplement or complete feeds is that the farmer can tailor make his own ration right on the farm.

And vary the protein levels to maximize their growth.

And in the future, we see that the farmer is going to have to be a better manager.

He's going to have to be the kind of man who knows his costs and knows how to manage his money.

He's going to have to operate his business much like we operate ours.

You know in order to be a successful company there's no two ways about it.

You have to have raw material control and I think here is one area where LaTroy really shines.

Market saturation by LaTroy is possible although we're a long way from that.

I think our growth has to come from areas that we're the weakest in.

And that is the international market, the exporting market.

We can do a much better job there.

This thing can double for the next five or six years for the next 20 years.

And I really believe that.

But we have to plan for it isn't it? We've got a lot of continuity in this company.

And these guys know the range of their responsibility, the decisions, what can and can't be done.

They know the trade, they're familiar with equipment.

These people have made the company.

I just kind of sit here and kind of put it all together.

Thirty years of effort, fight and hopes have taken us from the last place in the ranking of the Spanish meat industries to the first place.

Years ago the industry in Spain was production oriented.

And nobody took care of marketing, of marketing research, of labeling, casing, you know, of quality.

Fortunately this has changed.

So that means we are not able to sell what we produce.

We only can sell what the customer wants.

This is the message.

So competition is always tough.

And the better way we find to fight against them is with innovation.

Innovation means investment in capital, in time, in human resources.

It means that it's risky, but has the reward that you are always the first one.

The good captains of the big ships are good when they are able to drive the ship under the storm, not when the seas come.

When the sea is calm, everybody is a very good captain.

The uniqueness of Tropicana is its pure quality orange juice.

Of course that's one of our strategies, to get to the consumer the very best possible quality that we can.

Behind me you'll see one of our unit trains that has 65 cars that go to the marketplace approximately every four days.

Unique in the industry.

There's no other citrus company that has this type of product on the market.

During the height of the harvest season, which runs from November through July, as many as 500 truckloads of fruit carrying 4 ,500 pounds of oranges each will be processed here daily.

Our ability to grow with Tropicana is limited only by our ability to supply the marketplace with this product.

Here I'm standing in a glass plant that manufactures two and a half million glass containers a day.

We do everything from making our own corrugated boxes to our glass containers to the plastic containers that we package our frozen concentrate in.

In fact, we do everything but grow our own oranges.

We see the world as our marketplace.

To date, our strongest foreign market is France.

We export our pure juice to France and we're probably the largest selling orange juice in that market Tropicana label.

SS is a retail business company.

We run over 60 supermarkets and hypermarkets.

1968 we opened our first supermarket.

So we have 57 supermarkets and three hypermarkets.

Hypermarket is different.

Generally they have a cafeteria.

They also distribute gasoline.

They sell about 60 % of food items and 40 % of non -food.

Television set, radios, tape recorders, hardware for the kitchen, clothes, shoes, all sorts of things that people want.

Before I joined the SS, I had the opportunity to make some training courses in the American car industry.

And so I could appreciate the American method of working, of thinking.

This warehouse here is an application of American industrial methods in the French distribution.

The American market is a very important part of the American market.

It's a very important part of the American market.

My dad has often said that I should take a little more time off.

I enjoy golf and play golf, but I guess my business is my golf for me.

I enjoy it, I have fun at it, and it's very rewarding.

It's rewarding to be successful.

It's a very challenging business and of course a very rewarding business.

And I think today I lose that enthusiasm as a day I don't get out of the business.

I found it a lot of fun and on that basis I'll stay for quite a while.

You have to work hard and if you like and you will build a company and a good business, it's fun.

It's a fun business.

Yeah, it was worth it, every step of it, even though you don't see that always.

And if you overcome it, then the satisfaction comes later, not at the moment.

Frankly, I can't think of anything I'd rather do better.

So all in all, it's a pleasure to wake up in the morning and come to work and know that it's going to be an interesting day.

Thank you for watching!

Identifier
F.2004-02-0031
Date Of Production
1970s
Abstract
Sponsored film by Beatrice Foods showcasing companies thriving with the support of Beatrice. A representative from each company talks about their products, mission, and how Beatrice Foods supported them to explore and experiment with new marketing models and allowed them to focus on improving their weak areas of business. Features production and manufacturing scenes for food, building materials, and luggage, and montages of food being grown and harvested in fields. Most shots are quick cuts of production intermixed with a representative talking to the camera.
Log
00:08 - moving car rear window POV, dust behind car, HA tractor in field harvesting crops, interior car passenger POV driver narrating, aerial TS view farmhouse and fields
00:36 - opening credits, Beatrice Foods Co. playing over shots of corn, hay bails, sunflowers, aerial TS of fields
01:23 - stylized montage of farmers drilling wells, bailing hay, aerials TS of fields, intercut with narrator in car and exterior aerial of car
01:12 - narrator visits Meadow Gold Dairy, representative talks about plant processes and technologies, quick cut montage of activities inside milk processing plant
04:39 - Savoy company in Venezuela, representative talks about plant processes and technologies, quick cut montage of activities inside candy processing plant, MS women on assembly lines
06:01 - Martha White manufacturer of baking needs, biscuits, cakes, pies, cornmeal, grits, representative Mark Richardson walks around plant talking about plant processes, technologies, marketing
07:04 - graphite manufacturer, Ben Miller discusses producing graphite, the material of the future, shows all the uses of their material in the following:
07:31 - aerial MLS 757 airliner in flight, shots of photographs of airliners
07:49 - LS space shuttle taking off
07:55 - MLS vehicle driving on moon's surface
07:58 - MS satellite floating towards camera, planet in center of background
08:09 - planet filling screen while satellite moves away from camera in foreground
08:33 - Sugar Bar Ranch, home of Jolly Rancher Candies, stylized montage of processing at the ranch, interior home collection of Western art, incorporate Western design into marketing
09:42 - ELS Chicago skyline, ZOOM OUT interior office of Nelson Archibald of Stifle lamp manufacturers, montage of activities in plant, mostly workers hands-on in factory
10:58 - Dave McGoldrick walks through Sampsonite luggage factory, discusses marketing, priorities
12:05 - montage of exterior and interior factory scenes, representatives talk about the growth Beatrice Foods has allowed them in marketing and developing their products
12:41 - interior brewery business
12:58 - representative discusses marketing in soda factory, Canada Dry, 7up on speeding assembly lines
13:26 - representative talks about marketing to consumer in factory with canned goods
13:41 - LS horses grazing in field, windmill in background
13:37 - Dick Swarzentruber of Vigortone, cattle feed supplement development, montage of farms, interior factory, lab work
14:50 - LaChoy, discusses market saturation and growth in new markets, montage interior noodle factory, woman applying labels
15:48 - Campofrio meat factory in Spain, went from production oriented to market oriented, montage of meat processing plant, aerial interior views and MS, TS meat on hooks, in assembly line, in freezers
17:12 - Tropicana oranges, trains deliver oranges, MS train cars with logo, montage of processing plant with assembly lines outdoors and in factory
18:04 - interior glass container plant, montage of interior plant, Tropicana glass containers filled with orange juice
18:48 - Phildar French supermarket (department store), montage of goods provide, clothing, televisions, clocks, etc., TS interior warehouse from ground to very high ceiling down an aisle
20:05-22:52 - text summary of Beatrice's business model ideals moves across screen over a montage of the featured companies and farmland, audio montage of representatives discussing benefits of working with Beatrice Foods Company, credits
Run Time
0:22:52
Format
16mm
Extent
830 feet
Color
Color
Sound
Optical
Reel/Tape Number
1/1
Has Been Digitized?
Yes
Language Of Materials
English
Element
Answer Print
Genre
Industrial
Form
Advertisements
Subject
Factories
Food industry
Business
Farms
Food
Agriculture
Related Collections
Jack Behrend Collection

Related Places
North America ➜ United States

Sponsor/client
Beatrice Foods Company

Main Credits
Weisenborn, Gordon (is director)
Fred A. Niles Communications Centers (is production company)

Additional Credits
Weisenborn, Gordon (is contributor)
Fred A. Niles Communications Centers (is contributor)
Orr, Rob (is cinematographer)
Weisenborn, Gordon (is editor)

 
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