From the Ground Up - McCain Foods Limited

Left to right: Folkert Sneep,
CEO, northern and central
Europe; Michael Figeac, CEO,
southern Europe; and Gilles
Lessard, CEO, continental
Europe, 1996.
the one in Beaumarais, and a second, PAS, in England,
producing fries for private labels. “Buying Beaumarais
was very good for us,” says Van der Wel, “because it allowed
us to compete with the Dutch and Belgian companies
with a low overhead company that could sell big
contracts to private-label customers and still keep our
market share.”
An important contributor in organizing the financial
affairs of McCain Alimentaire in France and later the
European operation as a whole was Alain Olivier, who
joined McCain in 1982. Olivier was working for Xerox in
the Netherlands when a recruiter approached him with
the news that a job as financial director of an international
food company was available in his native France.
Told the company’s product was french fries, Olivier
said he wasn’t interested – he didn’t think a company
producing such an unsophisticated product had much of a future.
However, after hearing from his Dutch colleagues of McCain’s reputation for highquality
products, he accepted an invitation to Florenceville for an interview. There,
Wallace and Harrison McCain, along with Carl Ash, now vice-president of finance,
changed his mind, and Olivier went to work for McCain Alimentaire. He was shocked
to find no proper financial procedures in place for such basic functions as invoicing
and payments. He had been told in Florenceville that McCain was an entrepreneurial
company. Maybe, he now thought, it was too entrepreneurial.
But the informal management style had its advantages. Olivier recalls an occasion
on which, two years after he joined, McCain Alimentaire had a cash shortage of six
million French francs. Harrison told him to call Wim Broer, his counterpart at the
Dutch company, and ask for the money. One phone call and the cash was transferred
immediately.
Olivier later took on the job of financial director for Beaumarais while continuing
to perform the same function for McCain Alimentaire. Later he became CFO
for McCain, continental Europe. He retired in 2007 and was replaced by a Belgian,
Erwin Pardon, who had been managing director for northern Europe.
Olivier has vivid memories of meetings with Harrison McCain, who went to
France on a regular basis. Harrison would expect every manager to understand the
figures in the management control report, even if they were not directly related to that
manager’s field. In meetings, if Olivier wanted to answer
one of Harrison’s questions, he was often told: “Alain, I
know that you can explain this figure, but don’t tell me. I
want to know whether others know, because that’s what
we pay them for.”
In another management meeting, Harrison, dissatisfied
with the company’s progress in penetrating the
French retail market, dropped the news that he had
recruited a Canadian, Gilles Lessard, to head McCain
Alimentaire and that Francis Dupont, president of
McCain Alimentaire, would be running Beaumarais instead.
Olivier believes it was news to everybody present,
including Dupont.
Lessard came to McCain from the Quebec supermarket
chain Metro-Richelieu, where he had been assistant
to the chief operating officer, with responsibility for frozen
foods. He went for interviews at Florenceville, where Harrison told him of his
frustration with two failed attempts to launch oven-prepared french fries in France’s
retail market. After talking with Lessard for a couple of hours, Harrison opened the
door between his office and that of his brother so that Wallace could have a short
meeting with Lessard. Then Harrison went into Wallace’s office and shut the door,
leaving Lessard alone. Five minutes later he came back and said, “Gilles, my brother
and I just had a board meeting, and you should consider yourself hired as the president
of McCain Alimentaire. Of course, we will speak with our managing director
[Van der Wel] for continental Europe, but you should prepare yourself to go over
there ASAP.”
A Paris advertising agency had advised McCain that its anglophone name precluded
any possibility of success in the French retail market. Harrison McCain responded
that if the agency could guarantee success, he would change the brand to
the non-anglophone name of McCainski. The agency declined and McCain did not
use its services.
Gilles Lessard didn’t think the problem was the McCain name. The reason ovenprepared
french fries were a hit in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and
Germany, and not in France was that the northern Europeans preferred to avoid deep
frying, while the French liked it. The French used the deep fat fryer at home for other
foods as well and did not mind the odour or fat content as much.
88 From the Ground up
Across the chA nnel 89
The northern Europe
management team in 1996:
(left to right) John Huige,
Hans van Rouwendaal,
Sylvia Patijn-Lodewijks,
Cees van Rijn, Kees Oreel,
Frank van Schaayk.