Kellogg Food & Agribusiness Club (kFAB) | Kraft-Heinz - Matt Henderson

Please introduce yourself - why did you decide to pursue an internship in food & ag business?

I'm a second-year 2Y at Kellogg with a focus on marketing and growth & scaling. Prior to Kellogg, I worked for Deloitte Consulting's Customer & Marketing practice in New York City, primarily serving grocery retail and food CPG clients. Reflecting on the last ten years of my life, I think my passion for food & ag really began when I took a writing seminar on environmental & animal ethics as a freshman in college. I am originally from rural upstate New York and come from a family of dairy farmers, but – in all honesty – I never thought much about the food I ate until my views were challenged in that course. Once I was exposed to a different perspective, I began to question a lot of the things engrained in my culture and traditions, leading me to begin my transition first to vegetarianism and then veganism. Now, I've been vegan for more than five years – and intend to be for the rest of my life – and I aspire to improve the well-being of animals, humans, and the planet through the innovation of food.

How did you approach the internship recruiting process? Did you know that you wanted to intern within food & ag?

My internship search was laser-focused on food & ag, specifically marketing / brand management roles in the food manufacturing part of the value chain. Early on, my target list included both small to mid-sized food & beverage companies (e.g., Beyond Meat, Oatly, Banza) and large CPGs (e.g., Kraft Heinz, Nestlé, General Mills). Both avenues have a lot to offer and I think it is a highly personal decision you need to make, especially considering the recruitment windows have not overlapped historically. For myself, I ended up choosing the large food CPG path because I loved the idea of being part of a larger cohort of MBA interns and participating in a more formal summer internship program. Additionally, marketing at large food & beverage companies is typically more general management in nature – going well beyond communications, promotion, and advertising campaigns – which aligned well with my quantitative skillset and past work experience.

Please briefly describe your summer internship.

For my MBA Summer Leadership Program internship at Kraft Heinz, I joined the company's marketing function on the brand team for Lunchables: one of Kraft Heinz's seven billion-dollar brands. The focus of my project was on the innovation / renovation side of the team (as opposed to base & communications) where I helped shape the brand's multi-year sustainability roadmap, with a special focus on enhancing the sustainability of Lunchables' packaging: something particularly important in the packaging-heavy kids meal combos category. From start to finish, I built the business case for more sustainable packaging (using internal conjoint data and IRI data), recommended the short and long-term path-forward across a number of packaging options (e.g., material reduction, more widely recyclable components, recycled content, different substrates / materials), and built out the short-term sustainability communications approach for the part of my recommendation that was approved and funded by the BU President mid-way through my internship.

To what degree did your internship provide you with a good understanding of the industry and function?

My project experience gave me great exposure to how teams and companies lead multi-year innovation / renovation projects in the food industry and some of the challenges and difficult trade-offs that result. Beyond my specific project, it was awesome to learn from other marketing colleagues on Lunchables as well as the folks in R&D, Finance, and Operations that I collaborated with. For example, I had the chance to sit in on upcoming year demand review meetings, witness competitor product tear downs, sample new products, and review pre-launch campaign assets and marketing collateral. Furthermore, though I still believe marketer / brand manager is the best and most influential role in many food & beverage companies, recent commodities inflation and supply shortages highlight how important it is to have a high-performing team across all of the key functions.

To what degree did your internship provide you the opportunity to develop new skills, knowledge, or a relevant network within the company?

I am grateful that my project gave me the opportunity to continue building my quantitative marketing skillset, having the opportunity to interpret internal conjoint studies, analyze IRI panel and point-of-sale data, and lead some quick-turn concept testing with more than 2,000 target consumers. The MBA Summer Leadership Program also had us actively engage with and learn from senior leaders at the company, including small group (less than ten people) discussions with the CEO, US President, and Chief Growth Officer, among others.

Did your internship experience influence or change your post-Kellogg career goals?

After graduation, I'm returning to Deloitte Consulting full-time and am excited to continue serving food & ag clients – including food & beverage CPGs, restaurants, and retailers / distributors – now in a more senior role of leading projects / client delivery. That said, my internship experience did reinforce my longer-term goal of working within a socially-minded food & beverage company, where I can have direct ownership over brands and products that can change the world for the better.

What advice would you give current students seeking positions in the food & ag industry?

First, make an effort to set aside 30 minutes per day (or a couple of hours per week) to read up on industry news and trends. In just a few weeks / months, that will take you from being just a food consumer – with only superficial knowledge about what you see in grocery stores and restaurants – to having a broader perspective on why companies are innovating, defending, transforming in different ways. Second, reflect on your most meaningful personal stories about food & ag; more so than many other fields, I think telling a compelling story that showcases your passion for food & ag can make you stand out. Lastly, try try try emerging and innovative food products yourself, even if you think you might not like them. Yes, they can be overpriced and / or hard to find, but consider this an investment in first-hand knowledge / observations that will help build your credibility (for interviewing, networking, etc.) and reinforce your passion for the space.