With New CEO Onboard, Caulipower Looks to Further Build Platform in 2023
Under the guidance of new CEO Marc Seguin and founder Gail Becker, veggie-based frozen food brand Caulipower is honing its messaging, innovation efforts and sales strategy in order to drive growth in 2023
Seguin, who joined the brand in March, is a former VP of marketing for the Wonderful brand, and has previous experience as CMO and president for Popchips and chief sales and marketing officer for GT’s Living Foods. Coming on board, he said, has given Becker more time to focus on commercialization and innovation, the latter a key tactic that Caulipower has used to drive revenue growth.
“My core experience is working with founder-led companies,” Seguin said. “I have found a lot of enjoyment is helping founders free themselves up to work on the things that actually make a difference to the business.”
Best known for its frozen pizzas, Caulipower expanded into two new segments last year with the launch of chicken nuggets and frozen multi-serve meals. For 2023 the company is continuing to focus on its three core revenue drivers: pizza, meals and chicken. Becker’s work will further build on this strategy, developing high-margin, profitable new SKUs that can add incremental revenue, and then selling these items into retailers.
Diversifying expertise within the sales team has, and will continue to be, a priority, including bringing on talent to help build out its presence in foodservice and club channels. Becker added that the company had “skipped over some of the normal steps in organizational development” due to its fast growth and now is benefitting from the “additional rigor” Seguin has brought to the business. The company is also renegotiating with the company’s brokers, some of whom, Sequin said, still treated the $100 million in revenue plus brand like the emerging startup it once was.
“I focused on opportunities where we were not taking advantage of our scale,” he noted. “Specifically looking at opportunities with existing contracts, negotiating with external partners, and more importantly opportunities organizationally to say, ‘Do we have the right structure to build upon?’”
On the marketing front, Caulipower has had a “singular voice,” Seguin added, with Becker noting that some consumers still associate it only with its flagship line of pizzas. In 2023, messaging will be aimed at raising awareness of the complete brand portfolio, which now also includes rice cups, tortillas, chicken nuggets and tenders, breakfast cups and family-size meals. Senior level brand managers have been brought on to help diversify the marketing messaging.
Caulipower’s ambitions require a considerable amount of time for sourcing and working with co-packers, some of which are based overseas and require frozen cargo shipping, a process Seguin said he will continue to help streamline in 2023.
Overall, he added, much of what he’ll be focusing on is refinement versus reinvention.
“It’s easy to have great results, when the momentum was already headed in the right direction,” Seguin said. “Turning things around is a much harder lift than when you’re coming in, the water is already rising and you’re already headed in the right direction. Then it’s really just fanning the flames of growth by making a lot of little tweaks around the edges, and then removing any obstacles.”
Still, Caulipower has plenty of competition. Fellow veggie pizza brand Cali’Flour has diversified its lineup by also going into frozen vegetable-based meals, while private label giant Trader Joe’s has developed notoriety for its rotating array of vegetable based pastas and gnocchi, the latter a category Caulipower just entered this fall. Meanwhile, B&G has devoted a significant amount of resources to its Green Giant line, particularly on the brand’s frozen products, which now include Veggie Spirals; Veggie Tots, Rings and Fries; Riced Veggies, Veggie Pastas; and a plethora of frozen vegetables in plain and sauced varieties.
