Charlie Pizzi says his greatest challenge as the president and
CEO of the Tasty Baking Co. is ensuring that the company will
be as relevant in 2010 as it was in 1950.
The trouble is, when Pizzi took the reins of the company five
years ago, its state was much closer to 1950 than the 21st century.
The company, which produces Tastykake snack foods, had
no technology platform of which to speak. Its line of baked
snacks was produced in an outdated, six-story factory constructed in 1922. The building required workers to pump ingredients up to the top floor, then gravity-feed the products down
through the building during the preparation and baking
process. And further complicating matters was the fact that
the company’s warehouse wasn’t a part of the production facility.
Pizzi says it became evident very quickly that the company
needed to modernize.
“The way we were doing things, it was probably good in 1930
but certainly not after that,” he says. “Our competitors were in a
situation where they had more modern facilities and had a technology platform. When you’re competing in a marketplace, you
need to be as efficient as your competitors, if not more efficient.”
And that wasn’t the only problem.
“Those were the leading indicators, but we had other things we
needed to fix before we tackled that element,” he says. “We had
to reconstruct our financial structure before we put in the new
technology platform. Then we had to start marketing and advertising again to bring news and excitement back to our great
brand.”
Pizzi needed to change the way Tasty Baking Co. did business.
People would have to learn new systems, prepare for a move to a
new facility and new life needed to be injected into the iconic
East Coast snack-food brand.
But change doesn’t come easy for everyone, and many
changes can have far-reaching effects. It requires finding people
that can help you win over employees, having a solid understanding any change might have on your brand and making sure
the changes actually stick.