From the Ground Up - McCain Foods Limited

Paul van der Wel, CEO,
Continental Europe, 1991.
in the French food industry. By 2007, France had become
McCain’s biggest European market, with the
company holding strong positions in the retail as well
as quick-service and other restaurant markets. It was
worth it for the French government as well, and not
just because of the economic boost to local farmers.
Because the Harnes plant was the most environmentally
advanced in France, it became a showpiece to
which government officials proudly brought a steady
stream of visitors.
Before the Harnes factory was built, André Bonduelle,
president of the largest vegetable canning and freezing
company in France, had warned Harrison McCain and
Tony van Leersum that the French farmers could not
provide raw materials as good as the Dutch potatoes
McCain was used to. At first, it seemed he was right: all
the potatoes McCain shipped from the Harnes area to
the Hoofddorp factory for testing were rejected.
The French growers considered the contract prices McCain was offering too low
and the Dutch quality conditions too strict. They put a full page ad in the local paper,
La Voix du Nord, urging farmers not to supply McCain. As a result, no contracts were
signed and the factory used potatoes from the Netherlands and Belgium. But that
couldn’t be a permanent solution. The company hired Michel Delaître, himself a former
grower, as potato procurement manager. It also brought in its own agronomists
to work with the growers. As of 2007, the potatoes supplied by the French growers
were, on average, even better than those produced by their Dutch counterparts.
If you had business qualifications and experience and you came into contact with
Harrison McCain and made a positive impression, the chances were good you would
get a job offer. Even on purely social occasions, Harrison had business at the back of
his mind, and he was always on the lookout for talent to help make McCain Foods
the world’s largest french fry producer. George McClure was hired after he chaired
a meeting Harrison attended. Paul van der Wel became a McCain executive after attempting
to sell McCain some fish processing factories.
In 1980, Van der Wel was general manager of
Associated Fisheries of Canada, a New Brunswick fish
processor that was selling factories in various parts
of the Maritimes. He met with Harrison and Wallace
McCain to try to make deal. A week later, Harrison
called him and said McCain didn’t want the factories
but it did want Van der Wel.
In 1981, Van der Wel joined as manager of special
projects, based in Florenceville. But the multilingual Van
der Wel was destined to help McCain Foods in its drive
to dominate Europe. Soon after joining the company, he
was sent to the Netherlands to take over as managing
director of McCain Foods Holland, with responsibility
for the Netherlands and four other countries.
Van der Wel had been born and raised in the Netherlands,
where he attended the State Agricultural College.
He then completed his education in Canada, obtaining
a BSc in food management from McGill and an MBA in international business from
Hamilton’s McMaster University. He worked for several Canadian companies before
the McCain job sent him back to the Netherlands. There, Van der Wel found a European
division that was “in the starting blocks” but not yet racing down the track. The
main problem, in his opinion, was that McCain in Europe was “a production-driven
culture, as opposed to a marketing culture.”
What is the difference? In a production-driven culture, the emphasis is on selling
what is produced, rather than on producing what the market tells the sales force it
wants. “A marketing attitude says that you must adjust your agriculture and quality
control to what the market wants,” explains Van der Wel. “If you don’t have the best
potatoes, you have to make compromises, but in general, quality goes above production
efficiency. You have to satisfy the needs of the consumer. Otherwise your
reputation goes down the tubes.” The problem existed, Van der Wel thought, because
McCain had taken over European operations in which the production mindset was
strongly imbued. This attitude was the natural result of an era in which production
employees were focused on the need to keep up with demand. Van der Wel set it as
his task to instill a marketing culture in his employees.
McCain at the time was based in the Netherlands, with three factories there. But the
most potential for growth and profit was in Germany, and so that is where Van der Wel
82 From the Ground up
Across the chA nnel 83
The McCain booth at the
1998 Intercool food fair
in Düsseldorf. The display
celebrated McCain’s twentyfifth
year in food service in
Germany and its twentieth
year in the retail market.