Top of the food chain | A new CEO takes the reins at Barber Foods
Photo/David A. Rodgers
Bruce Wagner brings decades of experience in the food industry to his new role as CEO of Portland's Barber Foods
For the first time in its 54-year history, Portland-based Barber Foods has a leader from outside the Barber family. Bruce Wagner, who joined the company as interim COO in November 2007, in February was promoted to CEO by the passing of a torch — or rather, a cigar. After founder Gus Barber died in November, his son Steve, then CEO of the company, took Wagner out to lunch. Steve Barber had already decided to retire from the company, and handed Wagner one of his father’s cigars and said, Wagner recalls, “My dad would want you to have this. Go get ‘em.”
Even before his official promotion to CEO, Wagner had already started the transition to run the company and lead its 750 employees. He’s started new initiatives to boost the company’s brand recognition in a competitive industry and a challenging economy. Wagner, a 25-year veteran of the food-packaging industry, plans to revamp the company so that its frozen chicken products can compete against such big players as Tyson, Perdue and Weaver. “We’re a smaller company surrounded by giants and crushed by rising prices,” he says. “We have to get our brand to market, focus on what we do best and do it very efficiently.”
Wagner has been doing just that. He launched a new regional advertising campaign that includes a television ad, the company’s first, and a spot in People magazine. He hopes the campaign will increase the company’s brand recognition, which he says is at about 5% of the market, compared to Tyson’s 90%. He’s also revamped the company’s production with the introduction of a quality management strategy that streamlines productivity to reduce errors and increase efficiency. (The company had two recent recalls of specialty chicken products that were minimized by early intervention).
Wagner’s also developed a new product called Grillables, a low-cal, low-fat chicken breast that’s easy to grill, targeted to what Wagner calls “active boomers — so, me.” Launched in Sam’s Club stores and now available at BJs and Hannaford, the product has been popular, says Wagner. “Our biggest issue is making enough of it.”
Barber Foods and the industry at large is facing a major contraction, Wagner says, as people cut their grocery budgets while rising costs push up the prices of poultry, ham and cheeses, which Barber uses to stuff its chicken products. The softening food-service industry has also affected Barber, which provides premium chicken products for hospitality events. Wagner says the company has over $100 million in annual revenue. “It’s a significant slowing,” he says. “We have to offset it with new products and the courage to keep advertising.”
Wagner spent 25 years working for the food-packaging divisions of Columbia, Md.-based W.R. Grace, where he made a name for himself by turning the company’s floundering divisions into cash cows. He started as a sales engineer for the company’s sealant division in the 1970s, where he recalls pulling a pair of overalls over his gray suit and reviewing operations at Campbell’s and Heinz plants. In 1981, at 28 years old, he was tapped to pull the company’s welded thermoplastics division from the brink of bankruptcy, growing it to $3 million in revenues. He eventually became president of Darex Container Products, Grace’s global packaging division. After a long career at Grace, Wagner decided he wanted a change, and he was referred to Barber by a mutual friend.
Coming into a family business has not been as challenging as one might expect, Wagner says, and for that he credits the Barber family, some of whom still hold management positions in the company. “The Barbers supported it so intently and were so adaptive,” he says. “I have to say it wasn’t hard to get people on board with the changes I wanted to do. They were ready for it.”
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