Insight on Business

The August 2011 Insight on Business

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Responsibility for many of the company’s innovation efforts rest with Kristi Jankowski, the senior vice president for innovation, who admits great ideas do not always work out as planned. Still, the company is always looking for better processes or products to meet demand, whether that’s the end consumer in the grocery store or perhaps the grocery store itself. “Everything we do is based on consumer needs and interests,” Jankowski says. “The large majority of good ideas don’t turn out. There are so many pieces to making a good idea a successful product.” Yet the company has had many innovative successes, from packaging to new cheese products. Jankowski says what matters is the constant drive to innovate and take care of customers. There is, of course, a strong passion for cheese at Sargento, which probably helps explain the many new cheese products the company introduces. Jankowski’s personal favorite is the Cheddar Mozzarella blend the company introduced earlier this year as part of the Natural Blends line. “It looks a lot like the Colby Jack, which has been around forever, but the texture is firmer and the flavor is sharper. It is truly a unique combination,” she says. Another factor driving innovation, says Lou Gentine, is that the company has stuck by one of the guiding principles of its founder. “Hire good people and treat them like family,” says Gentine, discussing some of the core principles that have helped Sargento thrive for so many years. “A lot of people like to be given the opportunity to present new ideas,” he says. “We listen. We have a system that allows for those ideas to be heard. Sometimes they wind up on the back burner because we have more important things to work on, but we listen to them.” That employee-driven culture resulted in Sargento being named Southeast Wisconsin’s top employer in 2010, in the Milwaukee Journal- Sentinel’s Top Work Place employee survey, which Gentine considers an honor given the competition. The company also maintains a very broad definition of family. Lou Gentine is the only one of the second generation still involved with Sargento. Following him, there are four from the third generation who also work for the company, including Louie Gentine, who is expected to step into the overall leadership role in the future. Like his father, Louie Gentine did not immediately jump into the family business. “I started out as a community banker,” says Louie Gentine, president and chief customer officer. “I got to see a lot of different businesses and learn about them. Aſter a while, though, I knew I wanted to go back.” When he did return, he worked his way through the ranks, starting out in the marketing department and also spending time in production and procurement before moving towards his current role. “Each of those steps gave me a perspective on different parts of the business,” he says. His experience is not considered unique at Sargento, which employs multiple generations of many employee families. Sargento’s second generation leader Lou Gentine poses with a portrait of his parents, Leonard and Delores Gentine. Leonard Gentine Sr. started the company in 1949 and early on partnered with Joseph Sartori, founder of Sartori Cheese; the two blended their names to create Sargento a few years later. The Gentine family purchased the Sartori family’s shares in 1965. Sargento Foods Inc. Founded: 1949 by Leonard Gentine Sr., who partnered with Joseph Sartori – the founder of Sartori Cheese, also based in Plymouth. In 1965, Sargento became wholly-owned by the Gentine Family when it purchased Sartori’s shares. Employees: 1,500 Net sales: $975 million Website: www.sargento.com www. insightonbusiness .com

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