European market leader Nomad Foods begins a procurement transformation with an intelligence-led strategy

The market leader for frozen foods

Frozen foods is big business: it’s nutritious and great tasting, and that makes it popular with consumers the world over. The global market value is predicted to hit nearly $377 billion by 2025, at a steady CAGR of 4.3%.

With family-favourite brands Birds Eye, Findus, Iglo, Aunt Bessie’s, Goodfella’s and more under its umbrella, Nomad Foods is the largest frozen foods provider in Europe. It’s a competitive industry, and to stay ahead, the company’s leaders must make intelligent, evidence-based decisions – particularly in procurement.

The Smart Cube has been Nomad Foods’ procurement intelligence and analytics partner for more than six years. Leveraging a combination of full-time onsite personnel and an offshore team, and its custom solutions – including Category and Commodity Intelligence and Procurement Analytics – provides Nomad with actionable insights to support strategic, data-driven decisions about its supply chains, purchasing choices and wider operations.

Strategic redirection

In January 2020, Nomad Foods hired a new Chief Procurement Officer, Stuart Caborn. Bringing extensive sector experience and a strong vision for the function’s future, Stuart set about a transformation programme to continue the ongoing growth and evolution of the procurement function.

“Often, procurement is still seen as purely the buying function,” he says. “I wanted to establish our team as a real value creator for the business – and The Smart Cube’s support is vital for that.”

A core element of the team’s success is their Procurement Excellence Team, headed up by fellow new recruit, Alexis Souchon: “A top priority for me was ensuring our intelligence and analytics support was fully embedded in the team strategy and structure. By sharing our new vision and direction with The Smart Cube from the outset, they are completely equipped to play a proactive role in taking it forward.”

This transformation has seen The Smart Cube’s role change within the organisation. The team has shifted from being an ad-hoc research provider to becoming a fully integrated trusted business partner, delivering custom intelligence and analytics work to support the new strategy.

“We used to discuss projects in terms of days,” says Alexis. “Now, we’re focusing far more on the long term, planning research and analytics projects that will span months, and we’re seeing fantastic, detailed work – and the results to back it up.”

Part of the team

Nomad Foods now has two full-time analysts from The Smart Cube based at its UK headquarters. Vikash Kumar and Mayank Taneja have both worked with the client for several years – and use that experience to add value to the procurement function.

“One of our corporate values is “Always Striving”, and The Smart Cube really encapsulates this,” says Alexis. “Not a day goes by when I don’t get a call about something they are working on, or bringing me a new suggestion.”

Vikash and Mayank are supported by an on-demand offshore team in India. This flexible, agile model brings a vast array of skills, knowledge and capacity, that can be called upon as needed, which is especially valuable when dealing with time-sensitive issues, or demands on procurement generated by strategic business activities such as M&As.

Over the years, The Smart Cube has become a fully embedded part of the Nomad Foods team. “No one sees them as an outside vendor,” says Stuart. “Vikash and Mayank are very much part of the team – and that’s the biggest compliment we can give them.”

Vikash and Mayank have even been nominated for Employee of the Month Awards by their colleagues at Nomad Foods on several occasions. “It’s not just the Procurement Leadership Team that recognises the work they do,” says Stuart. “Everyone in the wider business appreciates the value they bring.”

Insight-driven approach enables rapid response and drives tangible benefits

The COVID-19 pandemic was one example where The Smart Cube’s flexible partnership helped achieve tangible benefits. Nomad wanted to understand how food service closures would impact commodity prices. Leveraging additional offsite resources to scale-up support enabled the team to quickly identify the critical commodities, develop 18-month price forecasts, and make recommendations about the right time to buy.

Empowered with forward-looking insights fed in on a continuous basis, the procurement team was able to act swiftly to safeguard the company’s supply chains, and take strategic cost positions.

Progressive, data-driven procurement

With two major recent acquisitions – Aunt Bessie’s and Goodfella’s Pizza – and the continuing roll-out of the new Birds Eye Green Cuisine plant-based product line, Nomad Foods has a clear roadmap for its future. And within the procurement function, that translates into a vision of a progressive and proactive intelligence-driven strategy that boosts efficiency and brings real value to the business.

The team is also working to further Nomad Foods’ digital transformation journey, with spend analytics and payable analytics, as well as the development of a dedicated procurement communication and collaboration portal, which is enhancing operational efficiency.

Such proactive, detailed and flexible support from The Smart Cube is helping Stuart realise the new vision – providing the deep evidence-based insights the Procurement Leadership Team needs to present and validate its strategies to key internal stakeholders.

“We’ve directed all The Smart Cube’s efforts into delivering our new vision,” says Stuart. “It’s not just the procurement expertise we value, but also the shared enthusiasm and energy, which is key to making the partnership work as effectively as it does.”