He’s the guy who always asks for more. Whether it’s more work or more ways to learn, everyone who knows Chad Groves knows he never looks for shortcuts.
That’s likely why Peter Brown, current CEO of Seaboard Foods, sought Groves out 18 months ago to start teaching him what he needs to know to take over the reins as CEO at the end of June.
“My background has been more sales and marketing, commercial-focused, but for the last 18 months, I’ve spent a great deal of time across our live operations teams, with farmer-owners of Triumph foods, and within our plant operations to understand where I was weak in terms of my background,” says Groves, who has been serving as senior vice president of sales and marketing for Seaboard Foods in Overland Park, Kan.
A firm believer that capacity to learn and flexibility trump experience on the job, Groves has been passionate about the food industry since he was a kid learning about sales from his dad who was a sugar broker and owned a small butcher shop.
“Never lose that curiosity to learn,” Groves says. “The people who are advancing their careers at Seaboard Foods wake up every day with a curiosity to learn, to get better and to make the business better. We can go and get you experience without any issues, but you’ve got to have that curiosity to be able to go out and learn.”
Read on to learn more about Grove’s career with Seaboard Foods, from his business philosophy to his views on consumer demand in the pork industry.
Q. What makes you unique in this industry?
A. I did not grow up on a farm. I grew up in the suburbs of the north side of Indianapolis and neither of my parents went to college. My dad was a sugar broker and started his own business. I went to college, thinking I’d come back and work for my dad at some point. But my dad was adamant that I “go and get some experience somewhere else prior to coming back.” That led me to Purdue University where I obtained a degree in selling and sales management. During that time, my dad sold the business right before I graduated so I had no business to come back to any longer. I found a job at Cargill and kept advancing forward in different roles until I landed my current position three years ago with Seaboard Foods.
Q. Tell me about your business.
A. Seaboard Corporation is a Fortune 300 company with well over 100 years of history that started in grain trading. The company diversified and expanded into other businesses. Nearly 27 years ago, Seaboard Foods started up a flagship processing plant in Guymon, Okla. That facility currently harvests just over 21,000 animals a day. But the main differentiator is the setup of farms surrounding that plant. We don’t pride ourselves in being the biggest, but we are vertically integrated and own the animals that we harvest. That’s a key differentiator for us. The business started with the Japanese consumer in mind who expects a higher-level eating experience. That quality has resonated across all our customers, both here in the U.S. and in other countries as well.
Q. What is Seaboard Foods’ why?
A. Our why is simple – we want to bring excellence to the table. With everything that we do, we look to be a cut above our competition in the marketplace.
Q. What is your business philosophy?
A. My philosophy is to be a down-to-earth guy who fits in with the rest of the team. I think that speaks to who we are as a culture. But what you’ll also find with me is that when mistakes, errors or issues pop up, I own it. I’m always looking internally. It’s easy to look external and assign blame to others trying to figure out who put us in a tough position. But that’s not who we are as a business. One of the books we live by here at Seaboard Foods is “Extreme Ownership.” It teaches you to look within when you’re faced with challenges. When problems come up, we look within to say, how can we be better? Some of my best growth has happened during those tough times when I’ve looked within and thought to myself, ‘How can I make an impact going forward to prevent us from being in this position again?’
Q. What do you enjoy most about your job?
A. It’s the people. The Bresky family has built a family-oriented business from day one. We’ve run relatively lean as a group, and we know the families of our employees and that’s how we always want it to be. As managers, we tend to be keepers of the culture and look at new hire and say, ‘Will this person add to or subtract from our culture?’ We’re wildly passionate about making sure we keep up and maintain the culture that we’ve been able to have here at Seaboard Foods.
Q. How does your company help and work with its customers?
A. We put the customer at the center of everything we do, and always ask ourselves, “Is this better for the customer?” I know when our team walks in the door, we’re never going to be the least expensive. But we want to outmaneuver our competition when it comes to the tangible and intangible areas our customers value.
Q. What concerns do you have about the swine industry?
A. The lack of incentive alignment that we have across our industry concerns me. Packers have no standardized way to incentivize producers for producing higher quality pork. Instead, producers focus on feed conversions. But when they do that, it jeopardizes the quality of the eating experience. National Pork Board research has found that consumers typically say no to pork for two reasons – nutrition and inconsistency. Pork is extremely nutritious and rich in vitamins, but we don’t talk about that enough. It’s a difficult scenario because we can spend a significant amount of money to go out and educate consumers to go out and try pork. However, if they don’t have a great eating experience, all that money has been spent for naught. We really need to figure out a way to reward producers for producing a better product. By no means am I calling to put in a grading system that’s going to require USDA inspection, but there’s great technology out there that allows for grading to be done visually by cameras and other means. This could allow us to put money in the pockets of the farmers for producing a better product that will lift the entire industry and help build trust in pork.
Q. What are the greatest opportunities in the swine industry?
A. We have several different housing standards throughout our system and segregation for each in order to meet the consumer and our customers where they want to be. I think getting to one national standard or one understanding, whether it’s a complete freedom to operate or a set standard, is key. We don’t want 50 states coming to us with 50 different standards because that adds more complexity to the business and costs within our system.
Q. Who inspired you?
A. I would not be in the food industry if it wasn’t for my dad. Growing up, he ran his business out of our house. I was basically his IT person very early on in my life. I also got to know many of his customers and went to customer events. That is where I caught my passion for sales. My dad would always say, ‘I’m never the lowest price, but my customer knows that whether they call me at 9 p.m. or 10 a.m. on a Saturday, they know I’m going to answer the phone and they’re going to get to have a conversation with me.’ That is what I’m trying to bring to this industry. My dad taught me to wake up wanting to be better every day and striving to do more.
Q. What will the business look like 20 years from now?
A. Our business is at this inflection point where we’ve grown to the size we want to be on the live operation and fresh meat processing sides. Now it comes down to executing in the value-added space. If I were to look back 20 years from now when I’m retiring, I want to be able to say we were wildly successful and built out our value-added business to be 50% of our sales.
Q. If you could do something differently in your career, what would it be and why?
A. I’ve certainly had some highs and lows within my career. Both the highs and lows have come with great learning, but what I’ve found is the best learning comes when you’re in the absolute lows of your career. You don’t realize that at the time because you’re going through hardships, but the lows make you a better person in the long run.
Q. What can the pork industry do to drive more pork demand domestically?
A. It starts with understanding who your consumer is. I’m not sure we really have understood who our customer was until now. We have done some segmentation, but never at the level that has recently been done by David Newman, senior vice president of market growth, and his team at National Pork Board. The National Pork Board is switching gears between understanding who the consumer is and now shifting to how do we go after them and bring them back to the category? I think it starts by telling those stories, meeting the consumer who’s more diverse than we are, making pork an ingredient and finding ways to put pork into dishes, not necessarily as the center of the plate. Finally, we need to share pork’s nutritional story more.
Q. What advice do you have for someone who might like to do what you do someday?
A. Don’t be afraid to get outside your comfort zone. Don’t get comfortable. If you find yourself in an uncomfortable position, even if that means changing up your job and asking for different responsibilities, the more diversity you can create in your work experience and what you’ve done for the company, the more doors will open further down the line. When we’ve had leadership roles open up here at Seaboard, the people that have put themselves in those uncomfortable positions, always end up in those leadership experience and leadership roles because they’ve challenged them themselves and shown their ability to learn.
Editor’s Note: PORK Perspectives is a recurring column that provides business and leadership strategy tips from some of the pork industry’s finest. The views expressed in this article are those of Chad Groves.
Read More:
Seaboard Foods Names New President to Succeed Peter Brown
National Pork Board Welcomes Four New Officers for 2023
U.S. Pork Trade Value: $61.26 Added to the Value of Each Hog Marketed
