Five Questions: Mike Gerke

Mike Gerke is no stranger to the protein business. A 25-year employee of ADF, IDF and FITCo, he is well versed in running the operations of the businesses that manufacture food products for pets and people across the country and in roughly 40 countries around the globe serving customers such as Ralston Purina, Knorr and Campbell’s. His new challenge is in leading sales and implementing the strategic vision of the companies that generated more than $200 million in 2012 revenues and employed 450.

Focused Objectives
“ADF was founded in 1978, and today is primarily a pet-food ingredient company. A big part of that is the egg. If you want to know which came first, the chicken or the egg – it was the egg. We make the eggs that go into a lot of super-premium pet foods. In 1982, IDF was founded. IDF has a single location in Monett. That facility has more than 200 employees, and makes ingredients for predominately the human-food side of the business. With IDF, our markets have been traditionally more in the soup, sauce, gravy and bouillon (products) – largely poultry based. … FITCo was started in 1991. That is a strategic alliance with an outside partner. It is predominately a manufacturing company. It is a (U.S. Department of Agriculture)-inspected facility in Anniston, Ala. Its edible products are marketed through the IDF side of the business.”

Taking up Sales
“During my 25 years here, I have predominately been on the operations side. That’s what I’ve been doing until November – I’ve been responsible for the overall operations of our plants, including the procurement of materials and working with our largest customers. If you look at the reporting structure here, what changed in November is that sales and marketing now reports to me, and human resources and finance now report to me. Before that, they didn’t, but we all worked really closely together. With human resources, they reported through me before. For me, the big difference is I’m going to be more involved in sales. I’ve got to dive in and understand it better. And for us, we are really trying to push innovation.”

Innovation Situation
“I ask people around here what we’ll be saying five years from now, 10 years from now, about how we’ve changed and innovated, how we improved our business model and processes. That’s just the way it is in business. Just because you’re successful today doesn’t mean you’re going to be able to keep doing the same thing. You’re going to have to be able to adapt and improve. You’re going to have to look at all the factors that affect your business and react accordingly.

“Sales and marketing is looking for trends that will direct our research efforts. ... Our operations people are looking for better efficiencies in our current processes and running plant trials as needed to validate new products and processes.”

Looking Forward
“We’ve had a good year (with) double-digit growth. … It doesn’t happen by accident. On the IDF side, we are trying to ramp up our international presence. IDF was Exporter of the Year in Missouri in 2010. I think, right now, about one-third of our sales are on the exports with IDF. It is less than that with ADF, but a significant amount of sales on the ADF side are exports, as well. Something we are working on is looking at our distribution network throughout the world and making that more robust.”

Raw Materials
“High grain prices have put a lot of pressure on our raw materials’ sources. That has made it more competitive to get raw materials, so we’ve had to navigate those waters. Grain prices go up, so people who are feeding animals somehow have to get more money for their products. Well, that doesn’t happen overnight. Those inventories have to be adjusted. As that happens, you’ll see less supply on the market. I think corn went from around $4 per bushel in 2010 to as high as $8 this past year. It had gotten that high in 2008, but then when everything crashed, everything crashed. Now, it has gotten back up there again.”