MADISONVILLE, La. -- The delicious aroma makes the chairman of the board and the CEO hungry.
"Love those red beans," said chairman Al Copeland, Jr.
Copeland and CEO Peter Smith oversee this huge food factory, the home of Diversified Foods and Seasonings. It's a long way from very humble beginnings.
"This all started at my home when I was, like, 9 years old and Popeye's was founded. We started blending spices and batters in our garage and kitchen," Copeland said.
Now this 90,000 square foot facility in Madisonville is one of three Diversified Foods plants, where products like red beans fill five-pound bags that are flash frozen in three hours for shipment.
"Popeye's represents about 70 percent of our business, so I brought in top-notch executive Peter Smith. I brought him in to try to grow this business," Copeland said.
Smith said, "I saw on Linked In Al Copeland had offered an opportunity to be CEO of Diversified Foods and Seasonings. I Googled it, and I found this really to be an intriguing opportunity."
Smith has a long track record with major national companies like Proctor and Gamble and Heinz. But it was when he became the CEO of Star Kist Tuna, and he told the staff that he would double the price of tuna, that he created a controversy.
"I had a grizzled 35-year veteran who worked with me say, 'Pete, with all due respect, the single stupidest idea that I have heard in the history of the tuna business. You cannot double the price of a six-ounce can of tuna,'" Smith said. "That spawned innovation, where innovation met consumer need, and that was the innovation of taking tuna out of a can and putting it in a pouch.
"Overnight, this became a quarter of a billion dollar business."
Two years later Smith and Copeland are on a mission to turn Diversified Foods into a key ingredient in a very competitive national food service industry. The company met a goal last year -- $100 million in sales.
"Obviously when I arrived, Al Jr. has a very aggressive vision for the business, which he made clear to me," Smith said. "He said, Pete, your job is to double the size of the business."
Copeland said, "That's in my blood. I fight every day to be better, every single day to grow and be stronger, and we do it through our people."
They are investing $15 million to upgrade the plants so they can produce food products for many needs, like spice mixes and ingredients for restaurants, sauces, gravies and prepared dishes, and their test kitchen can design recipes to fit the client's needs.
"So we are a custom food manufacturing operation, so we'll take the needs and desires, or the current trends, and we'll create something that is very interesting for their restaurant," Copeland said.
Smith said, "And then you look at our plants, they have capacity of 320 million pounds. Right now we're manufacturing 125 million, 40 percent capacity right now. The sky is the limit."
Copeland said "We have our new retail line called Chef's Creations. We're in 1,600 Kroger's locations, which is a new business for us. We've never been in the retail business before."
But Copeland and Smith say there are so many ways to expand.
"The majority of our business is the restaurant business, quick service restaurants," Smith said. "In the United States, that is a $700 billion business. There are 630,000 restaurants. We're in just shy of 6000 restaurants. We're only in 1 percent of the entire restaurant universe in the U.S. Tremendous opportunity."
It's 85 degrees outside, but in this freezer, it is below zero.
"We've got a lot of red beans in this freezer right now. We've got, like, a million and a half pounds of products in this freezer."
Along the way, Smith fell in love with New Orleans, despite meeting the local critters.
"Well, he learned about termites and flying cockroaches, and a few things he hadn't seen before," Copeland said.
Smith said, "I've never been chased down the driveway before by insects, but other than that, it's been wonderful."
