Mark Jansen
President & CEO
Every year growing and marketing almonds
is an adventure: two billion pound crops,
monsoonal weather during bloom, record
summer heat, late season navel orange worm
infestation, resulting reject kernels, and market
premiums for high quality almonds. Frankly,
that every crop and each day presents new
challenges and opportunities is part of what
makes the work fun.
I have never been more
honored to serve as
Blue Diamond’s
President
and CEO. The cooperative
is always innovating and
looking for new ideas. At
our annual grower meeting
last month, we welcomed
HP Hood Executive Vice
President Jeff Kaneb. Ten
years ago HP Hood, the
second largest dairy
processor in the U.S. and
a family-owned company,
entered into a licensing
partnership with
Blue Diamond
that took a
small shelf-stable
Almond Breeze
business into
the refrigerated section. At first, the biggest
concern was producing small enough quantities
to avoid throwing away old-age product. At
that time, soy milk represented
75 percent of the non-dairy category with Silk
the dominate brand. Today,
Blue Diamond
Almond Breeze
is the share leader and
almondmilk dominates the non-dairy category
with 70 percent share. From the beginning,
the son of the owner was
Almond Breeze’s
champion at HP Hood. His leadership and
partnership in building a $400 million retail
business is helping to grow
Blue Diamond
.
When I came to
Blue Diamond
, I always
asked growers, “What do you need from
me
?
” They always responded with the same
three answers, “Return, return, return.” At the
time,
Blue Diamond
was arguably the best
in the almond industry. The 10-year return
average had beaten the competition by $.01
per pound. However, to get noticed, it was
clear that we needed to set the bar higher.
So, we set the audacious goal of consistently
beating the competition by $.10 a pound.
In the first three years with
Blue Diamond
,
the average beat improved to $.05 a pound.
In the next three years,
Blue Diamond
better
navigated the turmoil of the drought pricing
bubble and subsequent price correction that
destroyed the returns of handlers with less
credit-worthy customers.
Partnering for Growth, Leading the Way
Blue Diamond is an incredibly valuable business and our grower-owners
know that second only to their land and trees is their ownership stake in the
cooperative. Grower-owners have a responsibility to ensure the business is well
run and the most important action is to elect a strong board of directors. I am
pleased that in this responsibility, our cooperative has done well. In 2017, for
governance, Private Board Magazine awarded Blue Diamond Growers Board
of the Year and we honor Chairman Dan Cummings and the entire board for
their excellence in governing Blue Diamond.
PRESIDENT’S CORNER
Jeff Kaneb, HP Hood
6
A L M O N D F A C T S
