Kraft Heinz Chief Growth Officer on Power of Partnerships

[00:00:00] Gigi Hadid posted how she made her tomato vodka pasta. And we were like, ooh, that's different. And her feed went crazy. We reached out to Absolute Vodka and said, fancy doing a partnership with us? They said, hell yes. We launched a limited time offering of Heinz Times Absolute Vodka Pasta. It garnered over half a billion impressions. So talk about Agentic AI. That will show up organically.

[00:00:30] And to date, it's our best-selling limited edition. Don't be afraid to reach out to brand partners and say, hey, can you help? Hello, and welcome back to Retail Disrupted. I'm your host, Natalie Berg. And today I am delighted to be speaking to Dr Amna Khan, Chief Growth Officer at Kraft Heinz for the European and Pacific developed markets.

[00:00:59] Karen is a seasoned CPG Executive with a track record of spearheading innovation for global brands like Lipton Tees and Infusions, where she previously served as Chief Marketing Officer. She's also held leadership roles at Diageo, Coty Beauty, and P&G. Today, Karen oversees innovation, marketing, and brand strategy for Kraft Heinz across Europe and Asia.

[00:01:25] This episode is part of our Shop Talk series, which is being sponsored by Manhattan Associates. So before we go any further, a brief word from our sponsor. While customer expectations continue to rise, consistent execution is now the real differentiator. Manhattan helps retailers deliver on the promises they make to their shoppers across stores, e-commerce, fulfillment, and customer service.

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[00:02:18] Okay, I hope you enjoy this conversation with Karen. Karen, welcome to Retail Disrupted. It's so great to have you on the show and to be with you here in Barcelona. Thank you very much. Absolutely delighted to meet you, Natalie, and to participate in this huge event. It is huge. And I have to say, you were my last interview. I've been doing a string of interviews, speaking to a lot of the speakers. It's been amazing. So I guess just to kick us off, Karen, can you tell us a little bit more about what you do and your role at Kraft Heinz?

[00:02:48] I'm the Chief Growth Officer for our European and Pacific developed markets. What that means in simple language is I'm responsible and my team are responsible for driving top line sales by creating content around Heinz, our most celebrated and iconic brand, and new innovation. So any new news to excite consumers and delight customers and bring more shoppers into their stores means everybody wins at the end of the day. Amazing.

[00:03:17] So let's talk about the shopper because there's so much change happening in retail and we're all consumers. We're living and breathing the changes ourselves. I'd love to know from your perspective, what are the biggest changes you're seeing in terms of customer behavior? Oh, I think there's a few, particularly linked to food that obviously we're spending most of our time on. And that is when you look at Omnichannel. So, you know, when we were growing up, it was all about the store.

[00:03:43] Nowadays, particularly Gen Z and younger singletons, when it comes to food, their inspiration is coming much more from quick service retail outlets. Whether it's Uber Eats or going into a Popeyes in Spain, then is serving as inspiration for a new flavor, a new meal that then they're bringing into their homes. Versus when we were growing up, our inspiration would probably be our parents.

[00:04:11] That's shifting quite a lot how we as brands then partner with retailers on new innovation, but also with our quick service retail partners. Yeah. There'll be a lot of retailers, of course, listening to the podcast. And collaboration is always important. I think probably more so these days. Can you tell us what is a successful partnership look like between a retailer and a brand? The first thing is a shared goal.

[00:04:36] If you've got a shared common goal and you'd be surprised and delighted that most of the time we're both there to delight more consumers and get them in to try more brands in the stores. So that's the first thing. And the second thing then is data. Understanding what are those issues with the consumer, with the shopper, when they're going around the store, where are their pain points? And then the third thing is collaboration.

[00:05:03] So often we will develop an idea, a prototype, and then partner with a retailer to test it, evolve it, and then launch it. So one of the best examples here is probably Ocado. We work with a lot in the UK. They've been a great partner over many years. We've probably launched more than 50 different innovations with them. Oh, wow.

[00:05:27] And most recently, across our beans portfolio, we launched our meals in pouches. And it's beans and pulses, so chickpeas or pulses. So we developed the recipes. We launched on Ocado. We got a lot of consumer feedback on the packaging proposition, the product itself, identified areas to optimize, and then launched globally. It's been a huge success. And then what that means is we both learn together on how to better delight consumers.

[00:05:57] And when we do go full scale at launch, we know it's going to be a success. On the topic of product launches, I'd love to know, I guess, essentially, what does a successful product launch look like? Because it is such a crowded, noisy market. There's a lot of competition. So what does success look like to you? Success simply is delivering something that cut through the clutter. As you say, it's a really competitive marketplace out there. Something that delights the consumer in a disruptive way.

[00:06:26] And ideally, that they want to talk about it to their friends and family and influence them. I'd say most recently, one of the launches we're really proud of is we've launched our Heinz Tomato Ketchup Zero line, which is all the great taste of Heinz Tomato Ketchup, but with no added sugar and no added salt. So that's been something that consumers have been asking for.

[00:06:48] And we work really hard within our R&D departments to craft a recipe that really delivers on that without adding any additional preservatives into the mix. So that launched last year in Europe. It's grown over 26% year on year. We're about to launch in the Middle East and Brazil and continuing to fuel investment and growth over the next two years. Wow, that's so interesting.

[00:07:15] So when it comes to new product launches, I wonder to what extent is social media and AI? How are you using technology to kind of influence your strategy? So hugely. So let's take developing the proposition with AI.

[00:07:29] We work within R&D and AI to identify the optimal flavor profiles through slightly tweaking the mixture of the ingredients so that we can get a recipe as close to the benchmark that we're looking for.

[00:07:45] And it's saving hundreds and hundreds of manual work and getting to outcomes far quicker and of a higher quality than we ever anticipated. So that's just one example of how we're using AI. Secondly, of course, in creative asset production.

[00:08:06] So we can create assets, test them very quickly with consumers and know, have we got an idea that's resonating strongly before we've spent thousands and thousands on production? So. Yeah, it's so interesting. And the time saving alone is massive, isn't it? It's huge. Yeah. So let's talk about how you measure the commercial impact of some of these creative campaigns. Can you tell us, you know, how do they ultimately drive purchasing behavior? We follow a relatively straightforward process.

[00:08:33] And the first thing is understanding what do we want to shift in the consumer behavior? And with any assets we produce, we then test that very simply using a variety of different methodologies, a lot through digital and some AI enabled too. Is the consumer getting from all of our content and campaign generation the message that we want them to get? Yes or no?

[00:08:59] And the good thing is loads of campaigns have been tested over many years. So there's clear industry benchmarks. And we're always looking for that top quartile. When we hit that top quartile, we know we've got a winning campaign. And what's fantastic about Kraft Heinz is we've been doing this for years. So we know how to do it well.

[00:09:18] We were awarded the Cannes Lion for Creative Effectiveness just two years ago because our insight we uncovered was consumers' irrational love for Heinz. They will go to extraordinary lengths for this brand. So we brought that idea to life through the campaign of it has to be Heinz. It's been going strong ever since. It's been going strong. And we're going to be a part of the campaign of it has to be a part of the campaign of it.

[00:09:42] And our latest iteration this year is called Lost in Love, where our protagonist is just lost in the world of his meal whilst all sorts goes on around him. And that was rated the number one creative effectiveness TV advert globally by Kantar. Oh, wow. Congratulations. Thank you.

[00:10:02] So we're really proud of continuing to push the creative excellence because we know when we then deliver that creative quality consistently through a variety of media channels, starting digital first to consumers, we drive growth. Yeah. And to your question, does it drive an impact? In fact, we've had many challenging years at Kraft Heinz from a volume growth standpoint.

[00:10:28] But as our CEO shared in our Q1 results a few weeks ago, Q1, we're back into growth. So exciting times ahead. Yeah, very exciting. And it's interesting hearing you talk about it because it's a reminder of how emotive it is, right? Buying food, we're emotionally attached to it. It's also habitual, especially with something like ketchup or baked beans. I mean, we couldn't live without Heinz baked beans in our house. It's like my daughter would not have it any other way. Like, you know, we're very brand loyal.

[00:10:56] So when we start thinking about AI and agentic commerce and let me back up because my previous guest was talking about how with agentic commerce in certain categories, it's just going to really take the chore out of buying, you know, your ketchup or your beans and things that you buy week in and week out. But then there's also, and maybe this is more of the kind of conversational commerce angle where actually I want a little bit of inspiration or I'm planning a meal or I want a special gift for, you know, Father's Day or whatever it might be. So I'd love to get your take on how you see this evolving.

[00:11:27] It's huge. And consumers are all looking for that recipe inspiration from a credible source. So what we're also doing is we are spending a lot of time listening to what consumers want and then delivering them a proposition that meets that need. And I've got a great example that I'm actually going to be talking about on stage tomorrow, which is we were seeing a lot of consumers talking about pasta sauces and singletons like, give me something exciting.

[00:11:56] And Gigi Hadid posted how she made her tomato vodka pasta. And we were like, ooh, that's different. And her feed went crazy. So then we reached out to Absolute Vodka and said, fancy doing a partnership with us? They said, hell yes. We launched a limited time offering of Heinz Times Absolute Vodka Pasta. It garnered over half a billion impressions.

[00:12:26] So talk about Agentic AI. That will show up organically. Hundreds of thousands of engaging comments. And to date, it's our best-selling limited edition. And in fact, next to tomato ketchup and Heinz beans, it was the third best-selling product in UK supermarkets when it was launched. Oh, wow.

[00:12:47] So that for us, by listening to consumers and then developing propositions that land organically means we will show up strongly in conversational commerce. So we plan on doing much more of that. Interesting. I'm going to throw a different question at you now. And I'd love your take on the common misconceptions that retailers have about large consumer groups. Challenging question. I think one of the largest or biggest misconceptions when it comes to large brands is that we don't listen.

[00:13:17] That we think we know best and we need to tell the retailer what to do. And that actually, from our standpoint, couldn't be further from the truth. We really value listening to what the retailer's concerns and challenges are and what's most important for that consumer. Because without it, we can't deliver something then that truly delights.

[00:13:42] One recent example we've got is through working with Popeyes in Spain, they wanted to craft a great source. And we said, OK, well, we'll make one with you. We've got amazing technologies. We know how to pair a beautiful source with your chicken tenders. But rather than just launching it in retail first, because they were seeing a lot of footfall going into our outlets, we started there.

[00:14:09] And it's meant that we've had such high pickup from the outlets. Now, as we've sold it into the retailers, they've got consumers coming in asking for the source. And that wouldn't have happened had we not been listening to the retailers, understanding the omnichannel journey that consumers are going through and developing a proposition then to better meet their needs. Yeah. And as we look to the future, there's so much change.

[00:14:36] I think I keep saying we're living in this period of perpetual disruption. How would you advise the retailers or brands that are tuning in today? How can they evolve and continue to stay relevant to customers in the future? I think I start with listening to your shoppers or your consumers. What are they looking for? Where are those gaps? And don't be afraid to reach out to brand partners and say, hey, can you help? The most wonderful partnerships often happen from a trigger of a conversation.

[00:15:06] And we are always more than willing to partner together, to listen and to explore new opportunities. So just listen and reach out. Yeah. Amazing. Karen, thanks so much for joining me on the podcast. Absolute pleasure. Thank you so much, Natalie. Thank you for listening to Retail Disrupted. If you enjoyed this episode and would like to support the podcast, please leave a rating or review or share it with others. It really makes a difference.