Sven Freybe, CEO, Freybe Gourmet Foods: “one of the biggest challenges we face is how do you talk about an industry that people don’t necessarily
want to talk about, and which hasn’t been talked about in a positive light in the last few years?”
S
yen Freybe believes it’s inevitable
that he would choose to run his
family’s sausage business differently
from any ofthe five generations ofFrey
bes before him.
The only question is whether the
changes are driven by his distinctive
business vision or whether they’re a
natural evolution of Freybe Gourmet
Foods Ltd.
“The big difference between my dad
and myself is my focus [i
j more on the
5
customer than on the production of the
product,” Freybe said while sitting on a
restaurant patio, sipping draft beer and
enjoying an unseasonably warm Octo
ber afternoon.
Earlier, he had attended an event or
ganized for what he called “mommy
bloggers” mothers who blog and do
most of their family’s grocery shop
ping.
The 38-year-old answered questions
about:
show his company keeps potentially
deadly listeria bacteria out of its prod
ucts;
where he sources his ingredients; and
howto use his products in recipes.
“It was exciting. It’s not often that a
company, which is already established,
puts the time and money into [asking
what moms think],” Coquitlam blog
ger Lindsay Dianne told Business in
Vancouver
Dianne learned that the company
-
B.C. About one-third of Freybe’s sales
arem thePrairies. Ontario andtheU.S.
split the remaining sales.
“I was impressed that theyreach out
through social media,” Dianne said. A
lot ofcompanies aren’t qñte there and
aren’t embracing that yet”
Freybe uses Twitter and employs
people to tweet on behalf of the com
pany, He plans to create smartphone
apps modelled along the lines of the
ones that Ethical Bean Coffee CEO
Lloyd Bernhardt recently released.
Bernhardt’s apps enable users to en
ter a code from their package of coffee
beans and identify the exact field where
their coffee beans were grown.
Freybe chuckles when reminded of
the adage that consumers don’t want to
know how their sausages are made.
“I don’t agree with that,” he said.
“It’s a fascinating process. We find that
people either want very narrow info or
they want to know everything. There’s
no in-between. One ofthe biggest chal
lenges we face is how do you talk about
an industry that people don’t necessar
ily want to talk about, and which hasn’t
been talked about in a positive light in
the last few years?”
Freybe admits that his company’s
revenue was hit hard following the us
teriosis outbreak in 2008 linked to a
Maple Leaf Foods plant in Toronto.
Twenty-twopeople died, andtherewere
57 total confirmed cases. The deaths
recall in Canadian history Part of the
problem for luncheon meat producers,
however, is that listeria is a hardy bac
teria that breeds rapidly at low temper
atures.
In aooo, Freybe had to recall ap
proximately 400 pounds of sliced sa
lami and ham that might have been
contaminated with listeria, according
to the U,S. Department of Agricul-.
ture’s Food Safety and Inspection Ser
vice. Freybe’s revenue, which will be
approximately $8o million in 2010, has
only recently recovered from the dip
that it took in the second half of 2008
and during the sluggish economy of
2009. Freybe expects it to continue to
grow thanks to his consumer-focused
vision for the future, which involves
more than tapping social media.
Renaming products is likely next.
Freybe recently visited a Cost
co in San Diego where store employ
ees urged shoppers to sample Freybe
products such as German dry-cured
Schinkenspeck ham. The employees
demonstrating the Schinkenspeck pro
nounced it’s name as though it were
made with chicken and were oblivious
to the fact that it has a silent “c” and not
asilent”s.”
“It’s tough to sell a product when
people don’t know how to pronounce
it and don’t know what it is,” Freybe
Unlike those food demonstrators,
Mission: Expand Freybe’s
market share in North
America and continue its
recovery from two years
of tough sledding
Assets: Lifelong
experience in the
sausage-making trade
and experience working
in a range of family-run
businesses
Yield: A company that
generates $80 million
in annual revenue and
is back on the road to
corporate growth
sausage making.
His father, Henning, showed both
Sven and his sister, Anouchka, the
company’s sausage factory when Sven
was a child.
Henning never pushed his children
to take over the business, but he let
them know the enterprise was theirs
if they wanted to put in the work re
quired to continue its success.
Freybe Gourmet Foods’ origins go
back to 1844, when Johann Carl Freybe founded the company in what was
then Prussia. Johann’s great-grandson
Ulrich, who is Henning’s father, moved
to Vancouver and in 1955 opened a new
handcrafted-sausage production facil
ity on East Georgia Street.
Sven has been the company’s desig
nated CEO since he was inhis mid-2os
even though he only officiallytook over
the CEO reins from his father in Nov
ember 2009.
Henning still logs about two days
a week whenever he and wife Brigette
are not travelling, He also set up an
advisory board that includes him, his
son, two industry CEOs and a former
business owner.
Much of Sven’s preparation for the
job came after he completed Grade u
at West Vancouver secondary school
and secured a bachelor of commerce
degree from the University of British
Columbia
Henning sent Sven to Europe in
1995 for several years to apprentice at
several other familybusinessesonwhat
was largely a volunteer basis. Henning
supported Sven during this time,
“It was valuable experience,” Sven
said. “I’d never worked in another
company other than volunteering once
at Whistler. I never understood how
other companies function the job
interviews, the performance reviews
and all the structure.”
Germans, he said, “fit the stereo
type” of having a work culture that is
more regimented, top down and stiff
than the one at Freybe’s 115,000-squarefoot office,
“Sven is a student ofbusiness who is
keen to learn,” said Whitefish Group
CEO Jay Garnett, who knows Freybe
• socially and whose kids go to school
with some of Freybe’s children, who
• are aged io, eight and four.
“He very much has the ExecutiveCommittee, Entrepreneurs Organiz
ation, Young Presidents Association
mindset and shares the leadership
through-learning mentality”
Outside work, Sven and his wife
Juliette are active sports enthusiasts
who ski in winter, sail in summer and
otherwise cycle, run and play ten
nis,
—