COVER STORY
tive and personalized offerings of both products and services” and an “ongoing rollout of omnichannel strategies” and consumer loyalty initiatives. One such example of these initiatives are smart mobile apps that plug into social networks so the chain’s “Beauty Insiders” can become vital members of thriving communities.
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JBS While many consumers have likely never even heard of JBS, the company has become one of the largest manufacturers of meat in the world. It slipped a bit in the rankings this year, however, due to a number of pain points related to the integration of multiple, major acquisitions of such more consumer-friendly names as Swift, Pilgrim’s Pride and Samco & Weddel. JBS has been hard at work expanding production capacity and has made investments in updating technology infrastructure at food processing facilities around the globe. A key piece of the growth strategy is a major commitment to transparency. The company launched a global compliance department that operates independently and reports directly to the board of directors. This initiative includes training courses for all leadership, new policies and procedures. Also in 2017, JBS established a global food quality and safety department to improve the deploy-
Rules & Guidelines INCLUSION
Since the annual revenue of most privately held consumer goods companies is not available, CGT’s Top 100 list only includes publicly traded companies. Therefore, well-known manufacturers such as Mars Inc., Ferrero Group and Dole Food Co. are absent from the rankings. (Mars, for instance, would be a top 15 company with its roughly $35 billion in annual sales.) It should also be noted that only revenues from the sale of consumer goods are considered when ranking companies that also have extensive operations in other
ment of quality programs and expand access to global export markets by first meeting, then exceeding, stringent quality control and safety standards.
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Tyson Foods Tyson crept up into the Top 10 in a year marked by major initiatives that started with the appointment of Scott Spradley as chief technology officer in June 2017. The 83-year-old meat producer has been striving to consolidate its disparate IT systems and tap into new technologies. Spradley has been charged with reinventing Tyson as a modern food company by leveraging data analytics, cloud computing and all things digital. In a move that’s probably now mandatory for all food manufacturers, the company is working on greater transparency and sustainability to keep pace with ever-intensifying consumer demands. Next on Spradley’s to-do list is a shift away from customized business applications: The CTO told The Wall Street Journal last February that 55% of Tyson’s application stack is custom-developed. The team therefore is working to significantly reduce that number and standardize business applications while embracing open source software in a bid to keep pace with the new wave of digitally native competitors. CGT
businesses (such as the pharmacy and medical device operations at Johnson & Johnson).
RANKINGS
Because fiscal 2018 has yet to close for many companies, CGT used fiscal 2017 revenue totals to determine each company’s placement on the Top 100 list. All financial information was sourced from Hoover’s Inc. or, in some cases, the company’s most recent annual report. Revenue for each company is reported in millions of U.S. dollars. If a company’s revenue was reported in a different currency, the amount was calculated using a
predetermined neutral exchange rate (Nov. 14, 2018). One-year gains are based on information from one of the aforementioned sources and methods.
M&A
In some cases, mergers, acquisitions or spin-offs that took place in the latter half of 2017 and 2018 (such as Dr Pepper Snapple Group’s merger with Keurig Green Mountain or Conagra Brands purchase of Pinnacle Foods) are not reflected in these sales totals. Deals that occurred in the first half of 2017 or earlier (like RB’s acquisition of Mead Johnson) are reflected in the numbers.
CONSUMERGOODS.COM | DECEMBER 2018 | CGT
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