A Letter from Gregg Tanner, CEO
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JULY ’16 A Letter from Gregg Tanner, CEO As we entered 2016, I lauded our employees’ hard work and expressed the importance of keeping our momentum going by executing our new Strategic Plan. Now, halfway through the year, I am very encouraged by the steps we’ve taken toward delivering the initiatives in our plan. Already this year we made strides against every one of our pillars: • Under the Build and Buy Strong Brands pillar, we • We made great strides continued building our brands with the national launch of toward Enhancing Future Caribou Iced Coffee, TruMoo Calcium Plus, and DairyPure Capabilities with new leadership Lactose Free milk. We also extended our DairyPure training that further develops line into creams and creamers. Within the Buy Strong our people. We also added an Brands portion of the pillar, we officially closed on our extended shelf life line at our Lynn, Mass., facility and are agreement to acquire Friendly’s Ice Cream. This move fills focused on expanding our warehouse capabilities. Earlier a manufacturing and retail void in the Northeast, and the this year, we launched our Purpose, Strengthening Lives brand is a perfect fit for Dean Foods for many reasons. Through the Goodness of Dairy, with meaningful employee One of the goals established in our Strategic Plan is to events in Salt Lake City, San Antonio, Athens (Tenn.), expand our ice cream portfolio, and Friendly’s is uniquely Springfield (Ohio) and Woodbury (Minn.). I greatly enjoyed qualified to help us achieve that goal. In addition to the those visits to the field and the opportunity to strengthen iconic Friendly’s reputation and strong brand awareness, our communities with donations to local hunger relief manufacturing diversity is also a key part of Friendly’s programs. Read my personal take on the Purpose on business we are looking forward to continuing. Read more page 3. about Friendly’s and the acquisition on page 4. • On the Drive Operational Excellence pillar, we completed • One of our goals under Transform Go To Market is to the DMOS 2.0 training among all Division and Field make our products available in every outlet where our Steering Teams and are implementing a tool to help assess consumers shop or eat. In order to accelerate our branded the profitability of our SKUs across the business. business, we must find more effective and creative ways to grow our distribution. Part of how we’ll get there is by • Falling in line with our goal to Strengthen Private Label adding new selling capabilities to our Commercial team Business, we won a significant piece of private label via a third-party sales agency named Acosta Sales & volume in the West region that will be coming online Marketing. This move will bring direct focus on getting our this year. brands into vertical retailers and increasing our warehouse distribution. This partnership with Acosta allows us to enhance our selling capabilities without significant additional cost to the business. More details on the Acosta partnership can be found on page 2. I am excited about these steps we have taken to achieve the goals in our Strategic Plan. Through this plan and the progress we made, we are differentiating ourselves from our competitors and securing our position as the leader in the dairy category. Together, we’re making this company better today than we were yesterday. Thanks to each and every one of you for being part of this important year of evolution for Dean Foods. PAGE 4 TruMoo and DairyPure are ® Building Champions This summer (through Aug. 31), DairyPure and TruMoo are teaming up to support the 2016 Summer Olympics. ® Leading up to and through the Rio Games, DairyPure packaging will proudly display MilkPEP’s Milk Life Olympic campaign logo. Consumers can participate in a contest for a chance to win a trip to the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, plus weekly Team USA–themed prizes. This national marketing promotion underscores the important and nutritive role white and chocolate milk play in our everyday Similarly, TruMoo gallons and half-gallons will feature the USA lives, and is a great way to build awareness for our national Swimming logo with a contest on specially-marked packaging, brands. with the grand prize including a trip to New York City to walk Dean Foods employees are not eligible to participate in the sweepstakes promotion. the red carpet with the USA Swimming National Team. How Sweet it is: Welcoming Friendly’s to the Dean Foods family Last month, we celebrated an exciting milestone in the histories of both Friendly’s Ice Cream and Dean Foods as our two organizations became one. Dean Foods now owns the Friendly’s brand trademark, along with its retail and manufacturing business. The Friendly’s Restaurants chain and franchise network will continue to be owned and operated independently of Dean Foods. Friendly’s produces popular packaged ice cream as well as other frozen dessert products, including single-serve sundae cups, novelties, ice cream cakes and rolls, which they distribute to more than 8,000 retail outlets. The Friendly’s ice cream brand represents and promotes what Last month, we officially opened our new ice we’ve built our business around, making it a great fit in our branded cream plant in St. George, Utah! This plant portfolio. will greatly expand our ice cream production volume in a key U.S. geography and allows us Friendly’s is known for delivering innovative, high-quality ice cream to ship ice cream to a variety of geographies products to customers and consumers. In line with our Strategic Plan without the altitude concerns that plague other pillar to Drive Operational Excellence, we will invest capital in the facility manufacturers. Welcome aboard, St. George! to ensure consistency with our other plants in terms of quality and environmental health and safety. The existing senior management team at Friendly’s will continue to lead the business, and we’re delighted to welcome their employees to the team. We are excited to continue growing our business with this iconic brand. Welcome to the Dean Foods family, Friendly’s! PAGE 5 2016 Employee Photo Contest: “Pick Your Pic” As part of last year’s DairyPure launch, we held an employee photo contest that received an overwhelming number of entries. Those photos have been included in News Splash and Moospace, and even in our Purpose video earlier this year. We enjoyed seeing your photos so much that we launched a second photo contest, “Pick Your Pic”. We challenge you to send in your most creative photo in one or more of the following categories: • National Brands (DairyPure and TruMoo): Send us your best photo using DairyPure or TruMoo products. Ex: gather a group of family, friends or employees and take a creative snapshot of everyone enjoying DairyPure or TruMoo. • Local Pride: Love your local dairy brand? Take a fun picture, making sure to include your favorite local Dean Foods branded dairy product. Ice cream makes a great photo! • Building Winners: As part of our DairyPure partnership with the 2016 Summer Olympic games, we created an Olympic-themed category. We want to see your Olympians-in-training. Ex: send us a pic of you or your kids fueling up with our milk after a big game. • Living Our Purpose: To celebrate this year’s launch of our Purpose initiative, we want to see how you’re Strengthening LIVES Through the Goodness of Dairy, whether it’s in the community, at work or at home. Ex: snap a shot of your local team volunteering or doing something to support your community. We welcome you to enter photos in one or multiple categories, and creativity is encouraged! A winner will be selected from each category, and you could see your entry featured in future company materials. To enter, send your Spend Well photos to [email protected] by Aug. 19. Full contest details can be found in the letters sent to your homes or on Moospace. Choose Well Live Well We look forward to seeing this year’s entries! Reminder: Schedule your Biometric Screening Take advantage of the onsite biometric screenings being offered at your location, or schedule your screening at a time that is convenient for you at a local facility. To register online, go to deanfoods.myevive.com (first time users will need their VISION employee ID) and click on the “Check my Incentive” Status Be the most admired and trusted provider of wholesome, Tile or contact the Blueprint for Wellness Call Center at 866- great-tasting dairy products at every occasion. 908-9440, Monday through Friday from 7:00 a.m.- 8:30 p.m. CST and Saturday from 7:30 a.m.- 4:00 p.m. CST. .