Borden had grown their pasta business to over $1 billion in sales through the acquisition of small regional brands. The complexity of managing 22 brands each with an average of 40 SKUs lead to an unprofitable business. As the leader for the business, I worked with our marketing research team and understand the brands strength, position in each market and customer needs. Utilizing this information, we were able to reduce the number of brands from twenty-two to seven. We standardize on packaging and pack sizes and used the savings to improve the product quality. Finally we focused our advertising and promotional budget towards the 7 key brands.

Results: Borden regained the number one position in pasta, surpassing both Hershey’s and AIPC. We increased sales by 18% and turned around profitability from a loss of -2.7% to a profit of 8.3% net operating margin.