THE CLIENT: Seneca Foods Corporation is a food processor and distributor headquartered in Marion, New York, USA. The company primarily produces canned, frozen, and bottled produce under private label as well as national and regional brands that the company owns or licenses. Under an agreement with General Mills, the company makes products under the Green Giant and Le Sueur labels. The company also produces frozen vegetables, fruit and chip products, steel cans, and runs an air charter business.
THE CLIENT’S OBJECTIVES: Because of changing demographics and the public’s shifting sensitivities toward packaging and organic choices, Seneca Foods is obsessed with remaining relevant. They learned about Ross Shafer’s book, Are You Relevant? and after several conversations with Ross, decided to conduct an executive meeting in Lake Geneva, WI to discuss how to craft their culture for the future.
DELIVERABLES: Ross Shafer was hired as the opening keynote speaker. His opening keynote was titled “Are You Relevant?” He demystified the global mechanics around, “Who succeeds. Who fails. And why.” Seneca also engaged Ross as the architect of a “RELEVANCE EVENT” featuring two of his consulting partners/speakers/authors/experts. Ross did a deep dive into what motivates buying habits in a digital on-demand society. Ross talked about what motivates customers to spend money in an on-demand society. He also used a myriad of fun case studies from other industries; which he cross-pollinated to the food processing business. Scott Klososky tackled the subjects of Big Data while Cam Marston (the country’s foremost generational thought leader) described how food consumption is changing by ethnicity and generational influence. Ross and Scott introduced the practice of “Humalogy” as the process of marrying humanity and technology for the purpose of improving profitability. It was Ross’s job to keep the tone of both programs energizing and fun.