From the Ground Up - McCain Foods Limited

German sales team in 1981 at
a meeting in the resort town
of Winterberg. Front row: (left
to right) Yke Veraart, Hartmut
Boesch, Richard Flor, Gisela
Muenker, Johanna Christine
Goenner, Reinhard Schacht,
A. Harrison of Benton and
Bowles, Tony van Leersum.
Back row: (left to right)
Dieter Weinreich, Edgar Thiel,
Stefan Mieth, Roland Zwick,
Leo Deiting, Josef Schmidt,
Friedbert Schelling.
for France, and the Dutch production
was shipped to other European countries
where consumers preferred yellowfleshed
potatoes.
For every successful acquisition, there
are usually several that don’t succeed.
The German plant owned and operated
by Ernst and Hildegard Schnetkamp
is one such example. Ernst had been
captured by Canadian soldiers in 1945,
and he liked to say, “Now you’re trying
to capture me again.” That was because
McCain Foods badly wanted his
plant. George McClure and later Tony
van Leersum made repeated visits, trying
their best to make a deal, and Harrison McCain visited the Schnetkamps several
times, but they refused to sell.
In 1972, McClure hired a multilingual American, Percival Stybr, as sales manager
for all of Europe, leaving John Huige to concentrate on agriculture and manufacturing.
Styber’s job was to build a sales team in the major markets of Germany and
France and to supervise the expansion of McCain into other countries, including
Italy, Austria, and Denmark. By now, McCain was one of the few companies that had
sales in more than half a dozen European countries.
It was around this time that Hanscom, a New Brunswick native, showed up at
McClure’s house. He had been working as accountant for McCain’s Australian operation,
which, like Europe, was in its start-up stage. Hanscom was in his twenties and
more interested in exploring the world than building a career. He had joined McCain
in Australia, where he had been working for an accounting firm. Before that, he had
been in Florenceville working on McCain’s books while employed by a Canadian
accounting firm. Wallace McCain, on his way home from Japan, interviewed Hanscom
on a park bench in Melbourne and offered him the job.
Hanscom accepted on the understanding that it was temporary. When he announced
he was leaving, informing Wallace that he and his wife, Margaret, were going
to travel overland to Europe via India, Afghanistan, Iran, and Turkey, Wallace
told him that if he could get to the Netherlands in four months, he could go to work
there for McClure. Hanscom agreed.
Hanscom was a slim man, and the rigours of the journey left him even slimmer; by
the time he got to the Netherlands, he weighed fifty-five kilograms, the same weight
as the two suitcases he was carrying. He arrived just before Christmas as McClure
and family were about to depart for a holiday in Spain. Recalls McClure: “I gave him
the keys to the mini and the house and said, ‘Settle in and put some weight on.’”
Hanscom remembers his time in the Netherlands as a great learning experience.
“George was the best mentor you could ever imagine. He would confide in you,
bounce ideas off you.” The only problem was that McClure liked to get up early,
and sometimes he wanted to talk to Hanscom right away. “Once he phoned me at
4.30 am. He wanted me to meet him for a walk on the dike because he had an idea
he wanted to discuss. George is a war historian. We are walking along and he’s telling
me a story about the Battle of Waterloo, and somehow it was an analogy about
something we were going to do. I said, ‘Did you really have to get me up here at 4:30
in the morning to talk about the Battle of Waterloo?’ But I felt very privileged that
he would talk to me and confide in me. Despite all his education, you could have a
good time with him.”
Hanscom’s business education was also furthered by attendance at monthly
management meetings of the European company. Either Harrison or Wallace usually
attended these meetings, often accompanied by Mac McCarthy. Sometimes, the
meetings lasted all day and into the night. One of the most memorable involved a
discussion of whether McCain should operate under its own name in Germany or
whether it should adopt a German name. It was a passionate debate, with most of
those present adamant that “McCain” wouldn’t do as a brand in Germany: it was
too English for the Germans, and a Germanic name was needed instead. By 8 pm,
74 From the Ground up
Across the chA nnel 75
LEFT: George McClure (left)
and Harrison McCain (right)
with the Schnetkamp family
in Muenster, Germany, c.1985.
RIGHT: Lewedorp, 1983.
A worker sorts potatoes as
Paul van der Wel (third
from left) and John Huige
(far right) look on. The
Canadian ambassador to
the Netherlands is standing
next to Huige.