The Shelby Report recently sat down with Monty Pooley, president and CEO, and Chris Tirone, chief marketing and innovation officer of JTM Foods LLC, to discuss the company’s role in the evolving sweet snack category.
What pivotal moments in JTM’s history positioned it to become a leader in the sweet snacking category?
Pooley: Our journey began in 1986 when Jeff McMillen and his father founded a bakery in Erie, Pennsylvania. They had a deep appreciation for both product quality and the engineering behind manufacturing. As foodies and engineers, they were curious about automating production to create fabulous products efficiently while delivering exceptional value. This set JTM on a course to compete by offering great solutions to consumers.
Through the 80s and 90s, we focused on baking, eventually transitioning to fried handheld snack pies. By the mid-90s and into the 2000s, we developed a unique production and packaging process. During this time, a key innovation was shifting from traditional glassine-wrapped pies to carton packaging. This not only enhanced the product’s visual appeal but also protected it, ensuring it reached consumers in perfect condition. This innovation truly revitalized the handheld snack pie category.
With this expertise, JTM became a significant player, producing branded products, co-manufacturing for others and developing private label solutions. This foundation has been crucial, as our Retail and Co-Man customers value our understanding of categories and collaborative approach. This collaborative spirit led us to expand our portfolio beyond snack pies and crispy rice treats.
More recently, the acquisition we made in 2022 gave us entrance into the ready-to-eat cookie dough category and our purchase of the Clover Hill Chicago facility which introduced us to cinnamon rolls, honey buns, Danish and donuts has been pivotal in broadening our sweet baked goods offerings.
What unique insights or approaches does JTM employ to grow its expertise and market share within the competitive sweet snack category?
Tirone: JTM has invested heavily in category management and leading-edge trend data. This supports our product development and helps our partners succeed by ensuring they have the right products and insights.
This blend of insights from cross channel trend data and real-time market discussions helps us unlock business opportunities. For instance, we’re actively exploring expansion into the foodservice channel by leveraging our insights into strategies for our new and existing category platforms.
Pooley: Our team is a mix of associates from large corporations and those who’ve spent their entire careers at JTM. This combination of diverse experience and expertise is our strength. Long-term JTM employees deeply understand our product production and facilities, providing essential foundational knowledge for evolution. Conversely, individuals from larger companies bring methodical innovation and customer-centric approaches. When you combine the structured expertise of a large organization with a nimble, flexible and responsive mid-sized company like ours, you get rapid, high-quality innovation. This allows us to quickly translate industry insights and data into appealing new products for consumers.
How do JTM’s latest acquisitions fit into the company’s growth ambitions?
Pooley: Our mission at JTM Foods is to be ‘The Best Choice in Sweet Snacks.’ We are already leaders in handheld snack pies and ready-to-eat cookie dough, bringing significant expertise to our customers and consumers in these categories. The strategy behind recent acquisitions is to expand into complementary sub-categories that are highly relevant to our customers. This allows us to approach them with a broader set of solutions that help them achieve their goals.
The acquisition of the Chicago facility (formerly Clover Hill) provides us with a new range of sweet baked goods solutions like cinnamon rolls and honey buns. These products align nicely with our existing handheld snack pies, as our retail partners often manage this entire category. Our increased flexibility and nimbleness, combined with an expanded product portfolio, will help our customers drive growth in their stores.
Tirone: Beyond the production capabilities for our co-manufactured and private label partners, the Big Texas and Clover Hill brands themselves hold significant potential. While some have been very channel-focused, like vending, we see latent opportunity and brand power that fits well within the JTM model. We believe these brands have future potential for expansion into new segments where we can win.
How do you see JTM’s distribution network and channel strategies evolving to optimize reach and meet consumer demand?
Pooley: Our strategic decisions regarding manufacturing facility locations are key to optimizing our reach. We built a new facility in Wichita, Kansas, to more efficiently service the western U.S. Chicago’s central location is excellent for manufactured products, as is McKinney, Texas. These facilities collectively give us efficient access to the lower 48 states.
Our next step is to consolidate distribution from these four manufacturing facilities, leveraging the successful model we developed in Erie. Our long-term goal is to consolidate our product shipments, optimizing inventory and freight efficiency. This makes us a better partner. Geographic relevance is an important strategic element of our growth plan, clearly demonstrated by our Wichita, Chicago and McKinney facilities.
What product innovations is JTM Foods currently focused on?
Tirone: We’re focusing our product innovation across five key areas: form, format, formulation, functionality and flavor, of course. Regarding health and wellness, we aim to evolve our core business with ingredients consumers trust, such as removing artificial flavors and colors and avoiding undesirable ingredients, while maintaining a competitive cost structure.
We also recognize the significant consumer demand for protein. We’re actively exploring and testing protein solutions for products like snack pies and ready-to-eat cookie dough bites. Clean label is another major focus, opening doors to new channels of distribution and meeting evolving consumer preferences.
We will continue to emphasize our wholesome, high-quality ingredients. For example, we source all our cherries from Michigan, ensuring a scratch-made product.
Furthermore, we’re focused on developing new flavors and approaches within our snack pie and ready-to-eat cookie dough categories that will delight consumers with a focus on Gen Z and the millennials. These exciting options, which are currently in the works, blend on trend familiar flavors with nostalgia. Think of a banana split snack pie with chocolate drizzle or ready to eat cookie dough bites infused with espresso and protein.
We are also in the process of refreshing our pie packaging, with testing underway. We believe this new packaging, along with some ingredient modifications, will excite younger demographics and reignite enthusiasm for the category.
Pooley: Our products are made from scratch with simple, genuine ingredients. When considering calories per ounce, real fruit content, and the overall authentic nature of our products, they are truly appealing. It’s a story we need to tell more effectively. We also believe that offering these ‘slightly’ indulgent yet authentic products in more approachable portion sizes can reintroduce them to today’s consumers.
What are the top strategic priorities for JTM Foods over the next three to five years?
Pooley: Since 2017, we’ve quadrupled both our top and bottom lines, and we intend to continue this focus on growth. Our primary goal is to identify and integrate complementary solutions into our portfolio, making us even more relevant to our customers and allowing us to deliver excellent products.
Second, we must remain committed to producing products that are extraordinarily tasty and satisfying. While we’re evolving with options that are ‘better for you,’ the product must always deliver a great taste experience for the consumer.
Finally, we believe the JTM culture is critical to our success. We will continue to build upon this ethos which is driven by our aspiration to be ‘The Best Choice’ and a recognition that success means meeting the needs of our consumers, customers, associates and investors. This culture is guided by six core values that shape our behaviors: respect, trust, accountability, teamwork, ownership and continuous improvement.
These values help us to expand successfully to our new facilities, offer greater opportunities to our teammates, and bring superior solutions to consumers and customers. We want our associates to feel a real sense of ownership at JTM. This strong culture is critical for our continued success as we acquire or build new businesses.
Our priorities are to expand our portfolio, ensure our innovations deliver on consumer taste expectations while exploring better-for-you options, and make sure the JTM culture translates across all our facilities and functions.
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