When most people think of what it means to be a socially responsible company, they might consider factors such as carbon footprint, sourcing and supply chain and community philanthropic efforts.
For Steve Schroeder, founder and CEO of Chicago-based creative werks, building a sustainable business also means prioritizing employees and supporting their overall well-being. “It’s good for business,” Schroeder said, highlighting the importance of teamwork among his employees. “The team is really the engine that’s driving the business so making sure the team is well taken care of and feels good and happy is what will lead to business success.”
That people-first focus serves as the base of all of Schroeder’s decisions at creative werks, a business that has thrived in the Chicago area for two and a half decades. Here, Schroeder takes time to talk with SmartBrief about how trends within the food manufacturing industry have evolved over the past quarter-century, creative werks’ growth drivers and looking forward, what the strategy will be for the next 25 years.
As a 25-year-old family-owned business, what would you say has been the key to your success? What has propelled your growth?
Business always has a million surprises; it’s about eliminating those surprises as best you can. You must be focused on getting a little bit
better every day and constantly analyze your tools and processes for improvement. It’s always going to be about that iterative approach. You must focus on it every day, all the details of it, and get obsessed with it.
I would also say having an amazing team around you is key. That’s what allows the company to grow and be successful. Diversification is important, risk management is important, but it’s really the little details of taking care of everybody that make the biggest difference. Ultimately, it’s taking care of the community and the community, for me, starts with my family and then it extends to all creative werks families, our suppliers and our brand partners.
How have you had to adapt to continue serving as a strong supplier for your brand partners?
Our mentality is about serving the client and taking care of the client so it’s more about being innovative and flexible. That’s the key— innovation and flexibility. It’s anticipating what our brand partners may need or want through having a strong relationship with them. And we do that through attention to detail in every aspect. You must be buttoned down. You must show them that you can protect their product. It’s not just about me, or just the client success team – everybody in our organization has to have the same mentality. We all must be on. ‘The client called, I need let them know I am there for them and on it—even if I don’t have an answer, I need to take care of the client.’ Everybody in the business must be focused on taking care of the client.
How has the food industry landscape (or at least your segment of it) evolved in the past 25 years? What trends do you see on the horizon?
Over the last 25 years, we have seen brands more willing to use partners for manufacturing, whether it’s their product or products that they go out and buy. More than ever, brands are focused on being brands and less on doing the manufacturing themselves in the food segment, I would say.
There’s also been increased focus on asset utilization and investment. A lot of the brands are public companies, they’re being scrutinized, so they’re looking for partners who are willing to use their balance sheet.
In the external manufacturing and packaging segment, the trend has been for the industry to consolidate and to become highly leveraged, taking on a lot of debt with private equity going in and buying businesses like ours. We, at CW, think that’s been a trend which creates a competitive advantage for a family-owned business because we’re willing and able to invest whereas a lot of companies are not willing and not capable of investing. It’s a short-term versus long-term outlook and we’re focused on the long-term. We are preparing for the next generation of family owners, not figuring out where we can get short-term gains so we can flip the business to another investor.
Your company has a holistic approach to sustainability that includes not only environmental-related stewardship efforts but also how your employees are supported and treated. Explain the philosophy behind that approach.
Again, you’re talking about having a team of people, making sure that the team is well taken care of and happy; this is what leads to business success. I think it’s really kind of crazy that so many businesses don’t think that way. They get carried away by focusing on the numbers to a point where it becomes almost punishing and demoralizing. For us, compassion, empathy and humility have been great keys to our success. I want people that want to be here, not people that have to be here. I’ve always felt everybody wants to come to work and be happy and be challenged in the right way.
If something is bad let’s change it. We have the ability to do that. I always say ‘we’ instead of ‘they’ because people always say ‘well they don’t let us do this’ or ‘they run the business this way’ and it’s really ‘us’ if we’re functioning as a team. If something sucks, let’s fix it, let’s change it. We’re open to that.
You’ve had a presence in the Chicago area for a quarter of a century now. How do you facilitate healthy community-building?
We’re involved in youth programs and job assistance programs in Chicago. We volunteer at local food pantries, and we offer volunteer paid time off so our associates can give back to the community. It’s important. People bring back a more understanding mentality or a deeper knowledge or even just a perception of how to do things differently. So, it’s good for our people and it’s also good for business.
What is your growth plan for the next 25 years? What are the key components of your next strategic planning horizon?
As I look at what we’re doing today compared to what we did five years ago or 10 years ago, it was very different. We’re more sophisticated, we’re more technical, we’ve learned a lot, we’ve grown the business and we’ve brought in additional clients. Twenty-five years from now, there’s a good chance we will have broadened our services to accommodate more needs of our brand partners. We’re looking at all these different opportunities and that’s exciting. At the end of the day, I think it’s about how we can continue to serve our clients. If you’re vertically integrating services like baking, chocolate-making, or printing corrugated boxes, or whatever it is, how do you continue to provide that great value they’re looking for? It’s all about how we can become a better supplier to the brand leaders.
We were born as designers and manufacturers and the only reason we got into co-packing is because our clients said, ‘We love your designs, but our factories will not do this. Will you do it?’ And we said, ‘Sure!’ And then we figured out how to do it. And that’s the beauty of it. It’s interesting because now clients are coming to us and asking if we will become chocolate-makers, bakers, etc. And that’s, again, propelling us to look at and broaden our offerings to clients. We never really thought we’d ever co-pack anything, but we’ve learned how to do it, and we do it well and we’ve reinvested. That’s exciting to think about; the next hurdles are opportunities.
I imagine a lot of your role has stayed the same over the last 25 years. How do you stay excited?
I believe it’s about change, growth and new opportunities. Now I’ve got my kids in the business and that’s very exciting for me. We’ve been able to grow the business and do all sorts of different things. I remember about 10 years ago, back in 2015, when we moved into our facility in Bartlett (Ill.), I took one of our brand partners on a tour. We had just wrapped up a big project for another brand partner and I said, ‘This room is available. If you’ve got anything, we’ve got this clean room, it’s a big room.’ That turned into an opportunity to manage a complex project for a major brand as they transitioned their largest brand from pillow bags to stand-up pouches.
Opportunities like that are exciting for me. We’re not just focused on making something and squeezing the last penny out of everything—that’s not the way we’re thinking. We’re thinking about growth. I love it when a client comes to me and says, ‘I know you have never done this before, but would you consider doing it for us?’ That type of message reaffirms that our clients trust us and want us to learn and grow with them.
If you were to leave all of your associates with a personal objective for the business for the next 25 years, what would it be?
I would say learn and keep learning. Yesterday, while I was having lunch, I was listening to a lecture on leadership in the Middle Ages. Learning, even when it seems unrelated to the business, is always relevant. Have a broad mind, keep it open and try to think beyond the box–or, even within the box, with a broad perspective. And be a listener. Power comes from listening, not from speaking or telling people what to do—it’s from listening, learning and then processing, ‘OK, what does that mean?’
It’s not perfect. Like Phil Knight said, there is no finish line. When you’re running a business, there isn’t a finish line; you can’t ever think that way. Sometimes, I think we haven’t been great at celebrating success because we’re always focused on the next challenge. We need to learn to cheer and be proud of our success. People say, ‘You built this amazing business!’ and I think, ‘I have built something that will, through family generations, require constant focus and care to grow and continue to be successful.’
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