Campbell Reorganizes to Meet Industry Changes

Campbell’s Soup has announced a strategic reorganization its officials said would better position it to capitalize on the changing food industry landscape, including shuffling some leadership roles and establishing an “accelerator” unit to expand further into growth areas and take over its ailing packaged fresh business.

The new structure organizes Campbell’s core business operations—including its soup, simple meals and shelf-stable beverages portfolios and its snacks portfolio—under the leadership of Luca Mignini as COO.  

Mignini, 55, who previously was president of Campbell’s global biscuits and snacks group, will gain additional responsibilities and emerges as a potential successor to CEO Denise Morrison, who is 64. Mignini also spent more than two years as CEO of the Findus Italy division of IGLO Group, Europe’s largest frozen food business. Before that, Mignini worked at SC Johnson for more than 20 years.

“Since joining Campbell, Luca has proven himself a superb strategist and strong executor with a keen understanding of the critical details of all our businesses,” Morrison said. “He has led our best-performing division, Global Biscuits and Snacks, and helped engineer the acquisition of The Kelsen Group and more recently Snyder’s-Lance. I am confident in Luca’s ability to lead our core businesses, oversee the integration of Pacific Foods and Snyder’s-Lance, and deliver improved execution and performance.”

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Campbell’s has made no secret of its intentions to evolve as consumers change eating habits and grow indifferent to legacy packaged goods brands, but it hasn’t been easy. While Campbell’s has recognized growth in areas such as snacks, volumes in core areas such as soups have been falling, and an investment in packaged fresh goods has consistently underperformed the company’s expectations.

The Campbell’s Fresh unit—which includes Bolthouse Farms’ portfolio of fresh carrots, carrot ingredients, refrigerated beverages and refrigerated salad dressings; Garden Fresh Gourmet salsa, hummus, dips and tortilla chips; and Campbell’s U.S. refrigerated soup business—has been moved to a new business unit Campbell is calling its Accelerator Unit.

The Accelerator will also consist of the company’s existing digital and e-commerce unit and a network of cross-functional teams that can be rapidly deployed against key growth priorities, the company said.

“Campbell’s Accelerator unit is designed to drive growth and build critical capabilities with an agile and dynamic operating model that, over time, will expand to other parts of the company and become the way we work in the future,” Morrison said.

The company has initiated an external search for a “chief acceleration officer,” reporting to Morrison, to lead the new unit and to fast-track transformation and future growth opportunities.

Campbell’s also named Ana Dominguez the new president of Campbell Fresh, succeeding Ed Carolan, who departed to become CEO of Lyons Magnus, a leading fruit and flavoring supplier to food manufacturers.

Dominguez joined Campbell in 2014 as president of Campbell Canada from SC Johnson, where she had worked since 1997 in marketing and management roles. Under Dominguez’s leadership, the Canadian business has demonstrated strong growth and margin expansion in its key businesses.

Campbell’s also made changes to its corporate strategy, research and development departments: