Ingredion – Strategic Update & Mid-term Outlook – 3
March 2021
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Specialist:
Title:
Moderator: Nyree Hinton (NH), Third Bridge Sector Analyst
Robert O'Mara (RO)
Former Senior Director, Marketing, Food & Beverage Segments, US & Canada at Ingredion Inc
Agenda:
1. Speciality ingredient macro demand trends
2. Ingredion's (NYSE: INGR) speciality division growth strategy, focusing on plant-based proteins and
sugar reduction
3. Core ingredient headwinds
4. Cost Smart programme update
5. Mid-term outlook
Contents
Q: Could you begin by sharing an overview of the food ingredient industry, highlighting the main categories
and drivers?
Q: What 2-3 industry trends were you noticing pre-pandemic?
Q: How have the trends you just shared been impacted or altered by the pandemic? How might consumer
behaviour have changed?
Q: Can you elaborate on the food ingredient industry challenges, whether pre- or post-pandemic? Do you
expect consumers’ shift away from eating out to be a tailwind or headwind?
Q: Could you share an overview of Ingredion’s business and the categories it operates in?
Q: You mentioned earlier that the away-from-home channel has been impacted by the significant reduction
in eating out amid the pandemic. Could you give an overview of this channel and the food service, grocery
and frozen customers within that Ingredion services?
Q: Which channel would you say is much more profitable than the others vs who Ingredion supplies to?
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Q: You have mentioned some larger players such as IFF and ADM. Could you elaborate on the competitive
landscape and Ingredion’s advantages or disadvantages in the speciality ingredient segment?
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Q: Ingredion launched a Cost Smart programme in 2018, with a USD 125m savings target, to improve
profitability, which is on track to deliver USD 170m in savings globally. What are your thoughts on the
programme? Do you think the company was too aggressive with cost savings, which may have compromised
growth or execution?
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Q: What value-add does Ingredion offer that would be hard to replicate? Ingredion’s speciality ingredients
segment seems to be a real highlight of the business, and you mentioned other lines of business such as food
systems, plant-based proteins and sugar reduction earlier too.
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Q: How long should we expect Ingredion to maintain its pricing power, given it is not easily replicated but
competition is a looming threat?
Q: Plant-based proteins are an exciting food ingredient segment and somewhere Ingredion has invested
heavily. Could you elaborate on the steps Ingredion has taken to support the growth of this category?
Q: What unforeseen impacts has the pandemic had over this group?
Q: How well-placed is Ingredion to capture market share in this segment?
Q: Speciality sweeteners and sugar reduction is another key growth area for Ingredion. What drives this
growth?
Q: You outlined some of Ingredion’s challenges earlier. Which do you think is its biggest threat?
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Ingredion – Strategic Update & Mid-term Outlook
Transcription begins at 00:00:06 of the recorded material
NH: Welcome to Third Bridge Forum’s Interview entitled Ingredion – Strategic Update & Mid-term Outlook.
I am Nyree Hinton and I will be facilitating today’s Interview with Mr Bob O’Mara, former Senior Director,
Marketing, Food and Beverage Segments, US and Canada at Ingredion.
Bob, before we start today’s Interview, please state I agree or I disagree to the following statement: You
understand the definition of material non-public information and agree not to disclose any such information,
or any other information which is confidential, during this Interview.
RO: I agree.
NH: Thank you, Bob. Could you begin by introducing your background and roles you’ve held in the industry?
RO: I’ve been in the speciality ingredients sector since 1991 in a variety of roles. I started out my career
working at food companies and my background is technical. Over the years, I made the change and in 1991,
working for an ingredient company, at the time it was National Starch and Chemical Company, which was
subsequently, the National Starch portion of it was acquired by Quorn Products about 10 years ago, maybe a
little bit longer. That was the company that is now known as Ingredion. A variety of different roles, including
five years as an expat Technical Director based in Hamburg, Germany, and I repatriated in 2007 and that’s
when my business career really took off. I managed a global strategic business unit for five years, and that was
a tremendous experience and saw the business from a little different side. The last number of years that I
spent were as, was described as a Senior Marketing Director of Market Segments in US and Canada, and the
focus really was on developing business, as well as I managed the market insights group and we, in that time
period, actually built consumer research capabilities in that time. I became quite aware of the trends and that’s
certainly a trend that you can see happening at ingredient companies over the last number of years, where a
number of companies have actually built that capability as opposed to completely relying on what their
customers are doing. I think that’s a pretty good overview of the types of roles and things that I had since 1991.
[00:03:42]
Q: Could you begin by sharing an overview of the food ingredient industry, highlighting the main categories
and drivers?
RO: I’m going to try to give you a good overview of what I’m describing as the food ingredient industry. One
thing to really note in, I would say, over the last 10 years, maybe a little bit longer, there’s been a tremendous
amount of consolidation over that time period. I think the latest example of that would be the recent
completion of the merger of the IFF flavour business and the DuPont food and nutrition business, and the
DuPont food and nutrition business was an amalgamation of a number of other, and I would describe them as
speciality ingredient companies, that had taken place over the previous decade. That’s a big blockbuster of a
company and decidedly different than some of the other companies that I’ll be talking about, so that’s one
thing to keep in mind, that a lot of these companies have been consolidated and gobbled up. When we’re
talking about the ingredients in everything, let’s start off with the commodities, and I’ll describe those, these
are ingredients that many consumers would find on their cupboard shelf. Wheat flour, cornstarch, maybe milk
powder, corn syrup, sugar, and these ingredients, the pricing on these is mainly driven by raw material
pricing. As commodity markets move, the pricing of these ingredients really will, ultimately, move to food
companies in that respect. Probably not so much when these products are actually put in consumer packaging.
The next category that we’ll talk about, and this is a big bucket and you could probably sub-segment this
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bucket into smaller buckets of products that are like each other, but we’ll talk about speciality ingredients.
There are modified food starches, functional native food starches, gums, emulsifiers, proteins, speciality fats
and enzymes. These products are, essentially, priced more on a value basis and based on their performance
and functionality. There is an element, certainly of raw material cost that enters into these products in their
pricing, but there’s an opportunity for ingredient companies to price them and they’re not as subject to the
fluctuations in the commodity markets as the basic ingredients. One thing I’ll point out, you’re thinking about,
“What are these speciality ingredients?” and sometimes there’s a significant amount of processing steps in
maybe chemical modifications to make these products. Other times, you can take these basic ingredients and
make them non-GM or able to claim an organic, like an organic cornstarch or a non-GM cornstarch, would be
considered to be a speciality ingredient. These products would command a significant premium, because,
quite honestly, it’s not so easy to do that and there’s not so much in the marketplace of these products, and
there’s quite a lot of interest by consumers in these products. Then we’re talking about you can consider
sweeteners in speciality sweeteners, or maybe it would make sense to consider them in another category, and
these would be not necessarily things like sugar or corn syrups, but these are the things like Stevia and even
some of the artificial sweeteners like aspartame and sucralose would go into that bucket.
Then lastly, I would say if you want to think about the industry, flavours would be in the last bucket. The
categories of focus for this industry are really in large part the supermarket and if you want to think about
things that are shelf-stable, they’re frozen, refrigerated and fresh-prepared, all have a combination of basic
and speciality ingredients and flavours and almost universally throughout the store. These products are also
used in food service and I would say the restaurant business that uses these products, are typically QSRs and
fast-food restaurant chains, and also chains that I would describe that are assembling meals rather than
cooking meals. We’re talking about places like Chili’s or Fridays or Pizza Hut, Olive Garden, and they’re buying
components to put together and they’re buying salad dressings and other things that are prepared by these
food companies. The food companies, and all of them are a little bit different, some of them focus primarily on
the grocery segment, others focus a bit on food service. Some of the largest players in this space would be, and
I would say two of the largest, and these are massive companies, would be Cargill and ADM, and they have
tremendous global footprint and are making quite a lot of products in both the basic ingredient commodity
space, as well as some speciality ingredients. Then you’re talking about other companies, Ingredion, Tate &
Lyle, Kerry, IFF, and then the largest flavour company would be Givaudan. These are companies that, I think,
have a fairly significant size and I think that the smallest in the bunch right now might be Ingredion and Tate
& Lyle, somewhere in that 6bn [sic] revenue, 6bn-7bn [sic]. You can see these are fairly significant-size
companies, and Cargill, ADM are multiples of that.
[00:13:23]
Q: What 2-3 industry trends were you noticing pre-pandemic?
RO: 2-3 trends is hard, so I’m going to give you more trends, but I’ll talk fast. I think these are all very
relevant and really set the stage in the marketplace. One of the trends, and I would describe these as being
really in place pre-COVID. I think there are some things that have changed, relative to COVID a bit, but these
are pre-COVID and I think these are ones that are enduring. This whole, wholesome, clean label ingredient
trend, maybe consumer-preferred ingredients, it has different names, and this is companies making products
that can deliver comparable, we talked about functionalities earlier, delivering comparable functionalities to
ingredients, but having labels more like basic ingredients and products that consumers are familiar with,
without chemical-sounding names. This also includes what I would describe are non-GM and organic
versions, and those are very powerful claims for food companies to make, so being able to source ingredients
that are non-GM and organic is very, very important. Another key one is reduced sugar. This is all based on
the increasing rate of diabetes, obesity in the States and changing of the labelling guidelines, which highlights
the grams of added sugar in certain foods, so there’s more transparency to the amount of sugar in foods and a
number of companies are trying to reduce that sugar, but still maintain the same sweetness and eating quality.
Also, an explosion of plant-based foods, which has taken place, and this is not necessarily driven by just an
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incredible in people that are following a vegetarian or a vegan lifestyle. While there might be some uptick in
that, but this is driven more by this term flexitarian. These are consumers that are choosing to reduce the
quantity of their intake of meat and dairy and everything, for a variety of reasons. It’s really a trifecta of
benefits. It’s reducing the global footprint. Plant-based foods have very much of a lower carbon footprint than
other products. There’s the animal. A number of consumers are concerned about animals and plant-based
foods are perceived to be healthier and better for you in many cases. The companies that are executing here
are doing a phenomenal job of providing really, really good-quality products to keep this segment excited.
Then lastly, the last trend that’s important is that we’ve looked at the innovation and also the growth shift. In
general, this processed foods, and specifically the stuff in the grocery store, in aggregate has been declining
bit-by-bit over the last number of years, shifting a bit to more of food service purchases, but the growth in
certain segments and categories is really coming from smaller companies appealing to certain demographics,
local. I think you can certainly say that that has been aided truly by social media and (? 18.22) the traditional
advertising clout of larger companies and everything just doesn’t really carry quite as well. That’s a summary
of the key trends seen pre-COVID that I think are relative to this market.
[00:18:47]
Q: How have the trends you just shared been impacted or altered by the pandemic? How might consumer
behaviour have changed?
RO: If you go to a supermarket, you can see a lot of empty spaces on the shelves with plant-based foods and I
think, depending on which supermarket you shop in, people have heard such horror stories about what’s going
on in meat-packing plants with COVID and also I think a number of consumers have just said, “I need to get
healthier. I need to lose weight and just try to maintain a higher level of health.” I think that’s really driven a
higher intake of plant-based foods and also, a big one, reduced sugar. A number of consumers are looking to
cut calories and take sugar out of their diet, just because of the various comorbidities associated with higher
COVID-19. Generally speaking, populations that don’t have access to good food have just really not done so
well, so I think this has made a big impact. The other trend that’s just been this shift that we had talked about
from grocery to buying supermarkets, preparing at home vs eating out, where the dollars, pre-COVID, had
actually swung to the side of the restaurant, that’s gone the opposite way. I’m guessing that that’s going to be
the trend that’s going to take and have a lasting impact for a while. It’s going to take some time. Vaccination,
people feeling comfortable, things getting to normal. I think that category is going to be challenged for the
coming years.
[00:21:24]
Q: Can you elaborate on the food ingredient industry challenges, whether pre- or post-pandemic? Do you
expect consumers’ shift away from eating out to be a tailwind or headwind?
RO: You know what? Here’s one we haven’t talked about. We mentioned the large companies and we talked
about the Cargills and ADMs and Ingredions and everything. Effectively, they were set up to deal with the
large food companies and were realising their growth. There was almost a planned growth and being able to
deal with these large companies, and they were doing well, and that all changed and these companies, the
General Mills, the Krafts, you just go on and on, Campbell Soup, these companies, really their business started
to shrink and so, therefore, the companies serving them were, ultimately, subject to the same thing. That
creates a lot of challenges in that they’re set up to serve big customers. How do they effectively serve the
smaller companies that are driving all of the growth? You could say that some of it, they do typically work with
distributors and working through their distribution network, but it’s not just about that. You could see and go
on websites where Ingredion specifically, you can buy truckloads at the plant, but you can also go online and
buy bags, single bags, if you’re just starting out. They’ve tried to create a lot of digital tools and tried to have a
presence to reach and to touch all of this innovation that’s happening at a very, very small and entrepreneurial
level. That pivot, I think, is a huge challenge for each of these companies that we’ve been talking about.
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[00:24:28]
Q: Could you share an overview of Ingredion’s business and the categories it operates in?
RO: Looking at Ingredion’s business, they’re talking about what they describe as being core, speciality, food
systems, plant-based proteins and sugar reduction. Those are the key businesses. The categories that we’re
talking about range in the whole savoury space, meats, sauces and dressings, dairy, products specifically like
yoghurt and, to some extent, ice cream, more with the sweeter portfolio, confections, baking, cereals and other
processed foods. You could also include plant-based foods. Mostly in the core business, there’s also some
business that’s still done with industrial starch. When I say industrial starch, these are starches that are not for
food companies, but for companies that are making paper or making boxes, corrugating. There’s also personal
care and what I would describe as pharma. Those are the specific categories. They’ll also even sell to there
ingredient companies, who are then in turn producing, and maybe adding a bit of value on top of the
Ingredion products and supplying a more complete product or solution to the food company. That’s an overall
view of the business and the various categories that it operates in.
[00:26:54]
Q: You mentioned earlier that the away-from-home channel has been impacted by the significant reduction in
eating out amid the pandemic. Could you give an overview of this channel and the food service, grocery and
frozen customers within that Ingredion services?
RO: It’s different, it’s difficult really to say definitively, because a lot of the customers are buying products and
they’re using them in both. This is really just an opinion and just based on historical perspective, but I would
estimate, and you could see on their website information about, and they’re spending a lot of time on culinary
and everything. There are definitely attempts to make more connections on the food service side, but I would
venture to say that the split would be around 60-65% more focused on grocery products, and this is based on
these large customers that they’re typically serving and the product mix.
[00:28:39]
Q: Which channel would you say is much more profitable than the others vs who Ingredion supplies to?
RO: When you’re dealing with the larger companies, you’re typically, your volumes, of course, are going to be
higher and your profitability, if you’re looking at a gross profit per pound, is going to be lower. If you’re talking
about, “Where are the margins better?” the smaller companies, the distributor business, these are companies
that in general have less clout and leverage in the marketplace, and they’re buying less, the margins are overall
going to be higher. I think disproportionately so, so there’s a lot of profit that’s in the aggregate of the smaller
companies vs some of the big guys that are really using these products. The nature of a company like Ingredion
and all of these other companies, and it’s just because of the complexity of the operation and of a corn wet-
milling plant, you really do not want to be having that plant sit idle and starting it up. You truly want to keep it
running continuously and towards its total utilisation. Ultimately, there’s quite a lot of incentive in some cases
to do that, so this kind of favours the customers in getting lower pricing in these categories, because large
volumes of business and keeping the plant running is important for overall cost.
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[00:30:53]
Q: You have mentioned some larger players such as IFF and ADM. Could you elaborate on the competitive
landscape and Ingredion’s advantages or disadvantages in the speciality ingredient segment?
RO: Ingredion, I think one of their key advantages has been sort of a tradition of innovation. They have come
up with some blockbuster products over the years and have really led and enabled the whole clean label
revolution. I would say that that’s one specific area where they’ve really charged ahead. Innovation and
technical, the value-added speciality, so they’ve been doing it longer than other companies. Companies like
ADM and Cargill, they’re just massive presences, typically compete on price. They’re bundling products.
They’re just behaving a lot differently. Their portfolio of products in the speciality space is not nearly as large. I
would describe Tate & Lyle as a company that used to be more commodity based and they’re behaving, over
the last number of years, more comparably to Ingredion. They have fine products, good products and they’ve, I
think, made investments in new facilities that are in more attractive areas of Illinois and (? 33.06) near
Chicago. I think there’s been a fair shift in their strategy to be more like Ingredion, and I’m sure that’s helped
their mission.
The blockbuster one, from my perspective, is the IFF and DuPont merger. If they can figure this out, because
they’re not necessarily saddled with this commodity business and wet-milling and everything, so they have
just almost exclusively they’re selling speciality value-added, whether it be flavours or systems and gums and
stabilisers. I think that is a force to reckon with and these companies, for a large part, deal with IFF as a
customer. I think that’ll be a little bit challenging to see how things really progress and move ahead. Then, of
course, you can’t forget about Kerry. Kerry has got a range of products and I think, if I were to describe them,
they’re one step further closer to making food, and so they’re probably, when you talk about solutions, and
solutions more than systems, and putting more complete food packages and customisation, they have been
doing that for quite a long time. I think that they’ve been an excellent company for delivering on that. They all
have some competitive strengths. I think Ingredion’s challenge is going to be how to separate themselves and
deal with some of these companies, and I think that they’re probably viewing the merger as quite a large threat
to their business and what they want to do, the DuPont and IFF merger.
[00:35:42]
Q: Ingredion launched a Cost Smart programme in 2018, with a USD 125m savings target, to improve
profitability, which is on track to deliver USD 170m in savings globally. What are your thoughts on the
programme? Do you think the company was too aggressive with cost savings, which may have compromised
growth or execution?
RO: I think that will be time will tell and I’ll tell you that Cost Smart is a synonym, maybe not like a deeply
cloaked one, for cutting heads and shutting down facilities. I think the food industry has been doing this for
years. Companies like Kraft Heinz is a perfect example of companies that have taken sort of a draconian
approach to business in the marketplace. I think in order to compete and keep costs down, I think this started
to happen in ingredients, and I think it was a relatively recent development for Ingredion. I think, if we look
and step back, and it was born out of necessity because of pressures on price and profits, and, ultimately, some
shrinking markets, and I think also, maybe freeing up some money to make some of the investments that
they’ve been doing. It’s a trade-off. Lose heads and maybe some of those people they can do without, but
they’re going to lose some good people as well, and function and execution becomes a little bit more
challenging, but, then again, they’re freeing up money for other things. I think time will tell to see how it sets
them up, but I believe they view that as an absolute necessity to be able to compete and to demonstrate to the
street that they could do this and be lean as well.
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[00:38:12]
Q: What value-add does Ingredion offer that would be hard to replicate? Ingredion’s speciality ingredients
segment seems to be a real highlight of the business, and you mentioned other lines of business such as food
systems, plant-based proteins and sugar reduction earlier too.
RO: The most value-added thing that they could do is to create unique products. They typically like to pursue
a patent strategy, so these are unique products that can’t be knocked off, or their functionality is so special that
can’t be done with other approaches or it creates problems for other companies to match. That’s really an area
where Ingredion has and likes to be, where they are selling unique ingredients. The other thing is that they’re
trying to provide, and you’ll see the term solution, a solution is typically more than just a product in a bag, that
works really, really well and is at a good price. It could be supplying regulatory guidance. It could be supplying
technical support and start-up assistance. It could be supplying starter formulations and just working
collaboratively with the customers. Ingredion has really been doing that for a lot of years and has been staffed
and had the people to do this specifically with large customers and companies, and they have a tradition of
doing it and they’re recognised as being strong in that area, as well as supplying recently, consumer research
and guidance regarding labelling. That’s the whole package of a solution and they try to take that specific
approach. That’s not easily replicated, but it can be replicated, because there are a lot of smart people that can
adapt to this approach, so ideally the technology and having the products that people want to use for these
trends, I think that’s really the key place and having as many of them as possible vs their competitors.
[00:41:37]
Q: How long should we expect Ingredion to maintain its pricing power, given it is not easily replicated but
competition is a looming threat?
RO: I think if we’re looking at the wholesome, clean label space, you’re probably going to see, and just because
this is such an important area, they’ve been doing it for so long, I think that they’ll maintain and be able to
have this pricing power, but the size of the pricing power is eroding. I still think, in terms of leader and being
an incumbent and you can believe that they will maintain a level of it, their key is to be able to ensure that
they’re supplying more products reaching and focusing on the right and growing segments, so a little bit of it is
go-to-market approach and ensuring that you’re working with the, and spending your resources wisely. A bit
of it, which you were mentioning before, is execution. I think that the business development and having the
products is one thing, but your business development, execution, is a key and I think if they do that right and
build the relationships, have the products, they can maintain it, but I see continued pressure because there are
going to be challenges to some of the areas that they’ve enjoyed this almost exclusive area, will be multiplying
over the next number of years. I do think for the most part, they’ll be able to maintain some level of advantage.
[00:44:07]
Q: Plant-based proteins are an exciting food ingredient segment and somewhere Ingredion has invested
heavily. Could you elaborate on the steps Ingredion has taken to support the growth of this category?
RO: Ingredion’s initial venture into this space was with a company called AGT and there was a JV and they
were selling pulse-based proteins, so we’re talking about peas and chickpeas and lentils. Essentially, they’re
proteins at different levels of protein concentrates. Not to get into a lot of detail, but management thought it
was essential to move to a different partner, so that would be one step. Shifting from AGT to the JV and
venture with Verdient, and then subsequent purchase, I think, was really a key step. Also, and there’s public
information that they have been making investments and buying facilities and building plants to produce
protein isolates, and these are the most attractive and most widely used products in the industry. The term
isolate just denotes a higher level of protein percentage in the plant-based protein. These are typically with pea
and a good portion of the explosion of things like Beyond Burgers and everything, has really been on the back
of pea protein isolates. One of the other things, while the plant was done and they have imported it and
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actually marketed offshore products while the factory is getting ready, just because they did not want to miss
the window of building relationships with customers in this space.
[00:46:44]
Q: What unforeseen impacts has the pandemic had over this group?
RO: As I had mentioned earlier, the whole plant-based industry, I think, and especially on the meat area, has
really accelerated that. Demand has increased across the category, which has really been a boon to all of the
companies that are supplying plant-based proteins. Ingredion was late to the game. There are a number of
companies, Cargill, ADM, another company, Roquette, they didn’t make the first list, but they’re a French
company that has been quite active in plant-based proteins. They’re all enjoying very, very good growth, based
on that fact. They knew that there was growth, but there’s even better growth due to what’s happened with
COVID.
[00:48:01]
Q: How well-placed is Ingredion to capture market share in this segment?
RO: They’re playing catch-up on getting the products and I’m guessing that they’re probably not going to be at
an advantage, relative to cost. I would expect, just based on being late to the game and the other guys are
doing it longer, that they’re probably going to be disadvantaged a bit, but in terms of the go-to-market
resources, the business development teams, the technical resources, is where they have the advantage. I
wouldn’t necessarily say they’re going to be the number one supplier, but I think if they look at their internal
aspirations in delivering what I would call sustainable and profitable top-line growth, I believe that they’re
probably going to exceed their own internal expectations and deliver in this category, which could be an entrée
to doing more things or potential acquisitions. That would be my view on it, but I would say if it’s on just the
pure price standpoint and everything, they’re probably going to be a bit disadvantaged and will probably not
be the number one supplier, but I think they’ll have a very successful venture just based on how the market is
moving right now.
[00:50:17]
Q: Speciality sweeteners and sugar reduction is another key growth area for Ingredion. What drives this
growth?
RO: We talked a bit about this before, about this whole health and people looking to, highlighting how
important it is reducing sugar, and a number of surveys and consumer information I’ve seen is just saying
most consumers are acknowledging, “I need to reduce the amount of sugar in my diet,” so that you’re not
going to get an argument about that from anyone. The consumer drivers are there and it’s how do you do it? It
is not that easy to do and there have been products that have been out quite a long time, aspartame, which has
about as great a reputation as high-fructose corn syrup. It just has a very negative consumer connotation.
Whether it’s deserved or not is not necessarily the point. Again, just how things just get judged today is very
different than it was before, but aspartame, sucralose, chemically sounding names, not that great. They did a
reasonable job in terms of reducing sugar and creating specifically beverages, both that deliver refreshment
and are good tasting.
There’s a need not only to get the reduced sugar and the lower calories, but to have consumer-friendly
ingredients. Ingredients that consumers feel good about. Two things that Ingredion has done is that they’ve
had a Stevia offer before that was done and they had some ventures and things to try to accelerate and go
beyond their initial starting point. Then eventually decided to acquire PureCircle, so that they could be experts
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in Stevia, so they’re betting heavily on Stevia and, in turn, they have a joint venture with Matsutani, and have
begun producing a product called allulose, which is being produced in a manufacturing facility in Mexico. This
product, allulose, is probably the closest sweetness profile to sugar, with virtually no calories. The thing is, the
intensity of it is less, so the Stevia allulose combination is probably one that you’re going to be seeing more
companies going with, and so that was really some of the bets that they’ve made. They’re betting on Stevia and
allulose to be a significant part of this whole sugar reduction area.
[00:54:13]
Q: You outlined some of Ingredion’s challenges earlier. Which do you think is its biggest threat?
RO: Some might say that the constant bleed of, if you like high-fructose corn-based sweeteners really is the
biggest threat, but I don’t necessarily see it that way, because without that threat, the opportunity for what we
just talked about wouldn’t be there. I think there’s a great opportunity that they have to have with a speciality
approach with Stevia and allulose, and really solving some big consumer problems, supplying great food and
enjoyable food, but a lot healthier with reduced sugar. I think that that’s really an opportunity and they’ll have
to manage the assets down. I really believe that their biggest challenge is how do they compete in this new
world where the companies, the innovation, is happening in so many different sectors and how do they supply
this value-added approach and remain differentiated? You can’t add so many resources that you just drive
your profitability into the ground. We didn’t talk at all about food systems. Food systems is a way of really
getting higher levels of profitability, but it’s a very resource-intensive approach to customise, so I think the
biggest challenge is this adaption of this big company approach, where you’re working with their research
staff, you have relationships with the purchasing agent and all of it is fairly well set up and clear. You go and
you have regular visits. You have to do that, to a certain extent, but how do you get to the innovation base and
remain differentiated to really capture the growth? In large part, I think that might be their biggest challenge
and that’s more of an organisational how to be large, but how to be agile, nimble and be a really, really highly
functional organisation that separates and is acknowledged by food companies as being as such as well. I think
that is their key challenge.
[00:57:55]
NH: That brings us to the end of the Interview. Let me just say thank you, Bob, for your input and thank you,
clients, for joining Third Bridge Forum’s Interview today. If you’d like to speak to Bob in a private call or
meeting, please let your relationship manager know. Goodbye.
RO: Great.
Transcription ends at 00:58:11 of the recorded material
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