World Grain - November 2024 - 34

strategic pillars, which include sustainability commercialization,
execution excellence, sales and operations
planning acceleration and people and culture. For example,
he described ways ADM is changing how it operates
through " execution excellence, " an efficiency initiative
formerly described as network optimization. Objectives
include operating the company's flour mills with less
downtime, higher yields and lower manufacturing costs.
" A lot of the way we are doing that is looking at our
From left: Jane
DeMarchi,
NAMA; Tedd
Kruse, ADM;
and Chris
Giguere,
Iowa Corn
Processors.
become involved, initially as a member of the company's
board of directors. After nine months on the board,
Kruse was elevated to CEO of Stratas.
Kruse described Stratas as a " phenomenal learning
experience, " as he was tasked with bringing together
two disparate company cultures, building a management
team and drafting and executing a strategic plan.
" In the beginning, it was supposed to be one plus one
equals three, " he said. " Instead, one plus one wasn't
even making two. I was afforded a level of autonomy
you don't always get in a large corporation. Failures I
experienced and things I was able to do were a great
foundation for who I am today, how I lead today. "
A new challenge
Kruse led Stratas for 10 years. That the company was
dedicated to taking legacy commodity-type products
and adding value by making them more functional
formed an approach Kruse said he is taking to the legacy
ADM milling business.
" It's a huge opportunity as we have transitioned it
over to ADM Milling & Baking Solutions, " said Kruse,
who was named president of the milling company in
2020 after the business was moved to Decatur from its
longtime headquarters in Overland Park, Kansas, US.
" We are working to take the great work my predecessors
had done with the milling business and try to make
it a more value added and specialty business. "
Adding value is one of five strategic pillars of ADM
Milling & Baking Solutions, he said.
" One of the reasons I'm so excited about that is the
innovation partner we have internally is our Nutrition
business, which is already making some great ingredients
that bring heart health, digestive health and cognitive
health into the mix, " Kruse said. " What we want
to do is take those ingredients and start working them
into our flour blends, our concentrates, bakery mixes.
We think that's a huge opportunity, and we have only
scratched the surface so far. That's a big way I will take
the learnings I gained at Stratas to bring that into the
ADM Milling & Baking Solutions business. "
Kruse touched on several other of ADM Milling's
34
total network of mills, " he said. " One of the things I'm
really excited about that we've really advanced on is
cross border cooperation. How we're looking at North
America more holistically. "
He said that in the past, mills would look at their
individual markets and territories rather than seeing
themselves as part of a broader network. This siloed
approach also lessened ADM's ability to optimize the
utilization of its network of mills in Canada, where the
company is the leading miller.
" Now we're looking at all of North America and
across the board collaboration whether it's wheat or
finished flour, " Kruse said. " It is really helping make us
a more effective, efficient supplier for our customer. "
Examples he cited include the Northeast, where the
company operates mills in New York (Hudson and
Buffalo) and in nearby Ontario (Port Colborne).
" You have facilities that are relatively close to each
other, " he said. " We're taking advantage of that proximity
and the capability of each one of those locations to more
effectively meet what our customers tell us they want. "
A similar model applies in the West, with mills in Calgary,
Alberta, and Cheney and Spokane, Washington, US.
" We're able to leverage those assets to go not only
across the border but then really extend it down the
West Coast and how we are serving the western region
of the US for our customers, " Kruse said. " It's not that
we weren't doing it before. It's that we are making it a
higher priority. Some of the opportunities that are out
there have enabled us to accelerate. "
Another approach for execution excellence revolves
around optimizing operations planning, Kruse said.
" It's scheduling production more effectively, running
the plants more effectively, " he said. " It's how we get
products to different regions, doing more rail-to-truck
transfers. It's getting product to customers we were not
servicing before, which goes back to this idea of certainty
of supply, consistency and reliability. It's something we've
heard all along from our customers, especially during the
pandemic, how important those things are. We're focused
on driving further improvement in those areas to become
a more strategic partner to our customers. "
A decision to roll out new marketing and branding
around HarvestEdge largely has been completed,
Kruse said, accompanied by a rationalization of numerNovember
2024 / World Grain / World-Grain.com
http://www.World-Grain.com
World Grain - November 2024

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