Speaker A
Hey Sean, good morning. How are you?
Sean Farrell discusses his retail leadership journey at Ben & Jerry's ANZ, emphasizing impact, team growth, and authentic customer experiences.
Key Takeaways
- Retail leadership is about impact on people and creating opportunities for growth.
- Understanding the frontline reality is crucial for effective marketing and operational strategies.
- Diversity and passion in retail teams can drive significant positive change when properly supported.
- Adapting global brand values to local markets requires respect for cultural nuances and franchisee needs.
- Social responsibility and authenticity are core to Ben & Jerry's brand and business success.
Summary
- Sean Farrell shares his nearly three-year experience as National Retail Manager for Ben & Jerry's ANZ.
- He reflects on his 12 years in retail management across Asia, UK, and Australia with brands like Virgin and Lucas Aid.
- Sean explains how his sporting background influenced his passion for being 'in the thick of it' in retail.
- He highlights the diversity and drive of retail staff, emphasizing the importance of opportunity and leadership.
- The conversation covers the value of field experience for marketing teams to ground their strategies in reality.
- Sean stresses the importance of empowering front-of-house staff to see career growth through back-of-house opportunities.
- He discusses the cultural nuances of managing retail in different regions and the need to adapt global brands locally.
- The interview touches on Ben & Jerry's social mission, franchisee support, and commitment to authenticity.
- Sean shares insights on initiatives like 'Stores for Change' that support community and employee development.
- He reflects on the satisfaction of enabling others to grow and make meaningful changes through retail leadership.
Chapters
- 00:00Introduction and Personal Background
- 04:00Retail Career Journey and Leadership Philosophy
- 06:53Empowering Retail Teams and Frontline Impact
- 09:51Marketing Insights and Reality Checks
- 13:11Cultural Nuances and Regional Adaptation
- 19:12Franchisee Support and Social Responsibility
- 25:13Ben & Jerry's Social Mission and Initiatives
- 28:40Stores for Change and Employee Development
- 31:23Reflections on Leadership and Impact
Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown
Speaker A
Happy? Yes, absolutely. How are you?
Speaker A
I'm good. How was your weekend?
Speaker A
It was lovely, yeah. Just some nice time with the family.
Speaker A
Yeah, lazy weekend, I think. It was good, I mean.
Speaker A
For the first time, nice. And you've been out, you've got a tan from the last time we spoke?
Speaker A
I just, my wife gave me jobs in the garden. I think that's what I just had.
Speaker A
No way, in the garden? That's also lucky with the sunshine, but um, for nothing, no sun tanning or bathing?
Speaker A
No, no, no, no. Relaxing, unfortunately.
Speaker A
Yeah, yeah. Um, restrictions, more restrictions left, so we're all pretty pumped down here. It's been a long 10 months, so
Speaker A
we're all kind of like rushing out and trying to enjoy the sunshine when we can. Having said that, today it's raining cats and dogs.
Speaker A
It's very Melbourne. We're cool, ready to roll, give it a go.
Speaker A
It's a bit like that in 2020, isn't it?
Speaker A
It's like, yeah, it can't go much worse.
Speaker A
So okay, so Sean, you've been at Ben and Jerry's now for nearly three years, is that right?
Speaker A
Right, yeah. As the national retail manager for ANZ. But prior to that, you've had
Speaker A
you've got about 12 years retail management experience, like codifying some world-class customer experiences for brands like Virgin, Valentine Group, and Lucas Aid, is that correct?
Speaker A
We've been managing across Asia, UK, and Australia. So just wondering, like, how did you
Speaker A
come to choose a career in retail management? Is it something you dreamt about as a little boy, or did you kind of fall into it?
Speaker A
Yeah, more wasn't quite by design, but I think you just, when you're growing through, you
Speaker A
find where you can have the biggest impact. So when I was younger, I was playing rugby. All a kid about was playing rugby. Then when you lose your chance to play rugby, you've got to figure your life out from
Speaker A
there. And um, and you understand how people work and where some opportunities are and where you can influence the best.
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Getting into fitness after rugby, clearly that was an easy option to go, but you suddenly find yourself born on
Speaker A
the ladder. And from being talked about on a daily basis in, you know, where you could be going to, suddenly you're getting amongst it with everybody else. So it really forces you to learn a bit more about you, your impact on others, and
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how others, where they've come from and what they've done and how we can grow. And in retail,
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you've got such a wide diverse range of backgrounds. Everybody's got a different story to tell. Generally, it's not as privileged, so
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people are there fighting hard and wanting to make change for themselves, for their family, for the people around them, for the environment that they're in.
Speaker A
And that's pretty exciting, and I always found an opportunity to align with people.
Speaker A
There's a lot of negatives in there where people are struggling, and it makes it really difficult, but you know, if you find the right people, find the right opportunities, you align to them, they can go so much further.
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You know, we're talking miles or something. Sometimes you need people, and they've got centimeters of growth opportunity, and the other people you've got miles. And when you're really starting at a baseline and people are just passionate, you talk to some of my scoopers in the
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stores now, and you just light a little bit of a fire underneath them, and they'll go to war. They want to change the world. They just don't understand how, and sometimes they're not, they've not been given the opportunity or the other the
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framework and how to do that. And it's really exciting that they can be sponges that you can really help out, and you know, you can give a little bit to, and it goes a long way. So I think that's, you know, that's what I
Speaker A
really do love about this. It doesn't come easy, but I do like the impact you can have on others.
Speaker A
Yeah, because retail really is the coal face, isn't it? Especially like right now, it's never been more important.
Speaker A
Because I remember, because my background is ex advertising, and I worked on Mars for over a decade on Snickers and a lot of the chocolate brands and the pet care brand.
Speaker A
And what I found was really helpful when I was bringing new people into my team is actually getting them to spend time with the field managers and the sales managers, actually going out to all the stores, watching how they get stocked, how they talk to the
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individual franchise owners and stuff like that, because it really gave us, I guess, a humility and a sense check for the ideas that we were proposing, like for consumer promotions and things like that at times.
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Yeah, we got a little bit carried away and was like, yeah, we're going to launch a hippopotamus, and then we'll get the customer to do this and this. And then when you actually see what they've got to go through every single day to convince each store owner
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to participate in the promotion, you really start to simplify and develop things that actually are going to make a difference to them and help them feel good about doing their job too, and not be embarrassed about walking in this
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pansy advertising idea that may or may not sell product.
Speaker A
Yeah, that's the key. I think it's just a reality check. It was actually, um, I was at the Unilever head office last week, and Nikki Sparta, CEO for ANZ, came out, and
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she's got a good background in retail. And introducing her to the team, she's like, cool, so you guys really do know what's going on. You are the coal face. When we say we're gonna do this, it's not reality. You can
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challenge back and push back, and it really does mean a lot to them to know that their voice can be heard. And when you can amplify what it means to the front of house, depending on what you're doing in the
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back of house, it changes everything in how you approach the world. So it's exciting, you know, where you can look at sales numbers, and people can look at, you know, driving the bottom line value, but really, if you look at the
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individual per person that has gone from a not just to B to C, but through to, you know, X, Y, and Z, that's pretty cool.
Speaker A
But if you teach that person at the front of house how to focus on change and opportunities in the back of house, they can really see career growth as well.
Speaker A
Yeah, it kind of makes sense when you say that coming from a rugby or a sporting background that you'd like to be in and amongst it, because it's literally that's the point of conversion, right? Because I think, you know, sometimes at a strategic level, we're stuck up in ivory towers in kind of pretty graphs and diagrams and stuff
Speaker A
like that. So I totally get why you went into retail. So I think, you know, taking that on board is sort of like where you've come from and liking to be in the center of things and seeing how
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things actually convert, like the theory converts into reality.
Speaker A
What else is there about you, I guess, as a person that, you know, may not be immediately obvious?
Speaker A
And when people first meet you, like, are you an avid stamp collector? Do you care?
Speaker A
Nothing that exciting. Look, I'm just an everyday guy that's just worked really, really hard. I think that's, that's, you know, the only thing I can really put on my CV is I've worked hard for the people around me, and
Speaker A
my people around me have helped me out. But, you know, I've tried to play rugby, and my body can't stand as a mine was paying checks, my body couldn't pay.
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And then you move through, and I've got a wonderful wife and the two boys that brought us to Australia. So I was really keen on going anywhere where the right work was with the right companies.
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Yeah, and for a company like Virgin was brilliant, you know, really people focused, driving forward, trying to do the right thing by the communities,
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and get into several different territory positions with them. And then the chance to open up into Asia was brilliant. Loved that, moving across to Singapore and helping to open Singapore and Thailand,
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and just with the support of the Australia team. And that's what really gave me an understanding again of different cultures. And when I look back, I think I would
Speaker A
have looked back initially as being an army brat, my da...
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guy called bert who's in charge of the brand side as well so he's a dutchman driving in an american brand in australia new zealand you've got to be extra careful we've always been very very focused on what makes us local
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what stands out for australian australians and kiwis the um and there are different expectations coming from the uk i thought i understood the relationships over here with the americans but australia particularly seems to buy into australian culture in a slightly
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different way than people uh from back in the uk um and so it's understanding what those nuances are but but we can't be an american brand we've got to grab part of those good bits but we do have a great brand that's
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trying to do the right thing that's got history and experience an opportunity and when i first started there was lots of talk do we go all out and try to be a company run you know retail brand my
Speaker A
life would be so much easier you can push things through a little bit edgier you can take responsibility from the start all the way to the end and franchising is extremely complicated and especially in in australia the laws for franchising uh are very
Speaker A
very complicated and rightly so but it does mean it's harder um but because it's harder but we don't want to push away from that actually the franchising what's what makes us local the person doesn't always see when you're buying a pint yes it's ben and
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jerry's and yes it can be an american and yes i don't need to know that we're made of something more your fair trade or non-gmo or what goes into the brownies or the carrying dairy milk whatever it might be they don't know those things
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and what what talks are our scoopers and our scoop shops um and so the fate of ben and jerry's becomes that local person whether it's the franchisee the manager scooper we drive them so hard to be part of the community
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to reach out to be an important a place for people to come and either switch off down in melbourne now and just you know relax and be out outdoors for the first time without a long time or just to close their eyes
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and you know enjoy the ice cream and be on a beach somewhere um but we can't do that if we're just a big brand telling people what to do and because we're not an ice cream brand we're a social
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mission brand that happened to make the world's best ice cream so we can't just come here and tell people what to do that's just going to fail we've got to have an appreciation and that's why ben and joe's is
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so conscious of having experience local experience making sure every scoop shop drives uh their community forward as best as possible then from a national level we look at who we should partner with so we pick local partners and for
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example in australia we work with 350.org and the climate council right now to to figure out what's the best way forward to get out across so we're not the forefront it's not the ben and jerry's brand we're driving and that's
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the key difference ben and jerry's is voice to support the partners locally to make the difference um because the brand's not the important thing we just use the power of the brand as we should to help the right people make the
Speaker A
right change um and um we've been in new zealand for six years or so now and we still haven't really had a big national campaign we don't feel we've earned the right yet to have a national campaign we've
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got to do more groundwork we're going to have more experience we can understand the people better we've got to earn the right to speak up and call out at the right time um and it's taken 40 odd years in in
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america to do the right thing we didn't just come out with you know dismantle white supremacy overnight that's taken decades of hard work dedicated people focusing on trying to make systemic change um you know we're very junior still in
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anz uh in our relationship with these countries and we've got to respect that yeah and i think it's um to your point it's sort of um trying to leverage the best of both worlds in that kind of global scenario
Speaker A
because you know what i guess global brand the benefits of that is scale the sheer scale um you know in terms of the resources you can invest into sustainability initiatives and research that you can then reapply at a local
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level but then how do you craft i guess that authentic local resonance and expression that makes it congruent with the brand yeah you've got some amazing competitors across these shores some brilliant brilliant um competitors that we're jealous of at times your strength
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can be your biggest weakness and it's great that we're a big global brand but we're a cruise liner that's very hard to move fast on so some people can bring out a brand new flavor overnight and your brand new opportunity or something
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else is happening politically and we won't be able to move that fast and so we miss those opportunities and it does hurt us um but um we've just got to clap when those people are doing the right thing
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and applaud them and learn from them and but you know we've got our work that we're focused on doing um and we've just got to make sure that we keep driving ourselves to be good enough and driving ourselves to be um
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a key part of people's thought process when it comes to whether it's an impulse ice cream or something that wants to change the world um but absolutely we are seeing in um in a nz particularly you know um the
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non-dairy vegan ice cream space it is going really really well compared to other countries if you look at our um franchisees definitely uh are very passionate about change i want to be part of that and our new zealand
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franchisees or another level above that again you know they wouldn't be involved if we didn't have this background with focus on change and there would be climate or whether it would be you know equal rights or um we've all
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got our own uh focus per country that we get to choose but our franchisees wouldn't choose ben and jerry's if we didn't have that there's an expectation and that's pretty cool yeah got it so i think that um you know
Speaker A
with that in mind as well like i mean i read some articles that 2020 was meant to be a big growth year for ben and jerry and then obviously covert happened like you'd recently opened up some pretty um some pretty new
Speaker A
big developments like one in burwood bricks which um their goal is to be the most sustainable shopping center in the world and you're up the road for me as well in ackland street now too so yeah how has um how has ben and jerry's
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fed during cleveland back on track now we are working back on track and well the new track's going to be fully just yet we've got to stay flexible with that but it's been it's been really hard for everybody in
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retail there's no hiding from that and i think this is one of the best times to have been part of a franchise network and also best times franchise network that's coupled with the fmcg world so we've had to come to the forefront to
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help our franchisees um you're actually right we had big growth plans for 2020 a lot i'm sure lots of other people yeah at the time and 2020 slapped us around a little bit um so our focus had to go right who
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needs us the most is our franchisees we want 100 survival rate for our franchisees and whilst i'll give particularly the australian government a hard time for their environmental policies that you know don't always align um i think they've been brilliant in in
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how they've uh worked through covid support for uh job keeper um support with the code of conduct for landlord rent um uh policy so putting those things in place fairly early on um helped us then right this is what we
Speaker A
need to do we get the experts in the field talk to our franchisees we'll do everything we can do so we'll drop the royalties for example we'll make sure trading terms are extended we work very closely to make sure we understand the
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profitability of the stores where were they what could we do and and actually again all the hard work you put into picking the right partners um who we work with with ben and jerry's our suppliers we've got a three-part mission one of
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them we've got to make sure the economic mission it we're not allowed to damage our suppliers so we can't squeeze and squeeze and then someone goes wrong either so we have to look after them but because we've got that
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great relationship i'm really pleased they all came to the forefront and helped share in some of this pain so touchwood so far powering any other another flare up anyway all of our franchisees have survived uh hoyt's partners of us to go through
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major pain at the moment but uh we're working with them we're looking to sign another room with them we want to share in this we've been standing toe-to-toe with them alongside them to make sure um you know when there's no films coming
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out and they've got thousands of staff they're in lockdowns it's been horrible but we're there we'll make sure um we'll do everything we can and then it was a case of financially where are we what can we do
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then how do we adapt then to make sure we are best placed going forward and we felt as typical ben and jerry's was our best opportunity was to be important to the community so there's all these people in
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horrendous times losing their jobs losing loved ones they were still going to work every day we needed to do a thank you campaign where we could just say thank you there was nothing above the line we didn't pay
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anything in the press we didn't want to do anything that was trying to drive ben and jerry's at this time it was just a case that we could use our brand to say thank you so we gave thousands of free scoops to
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our franchisees to go out there and people they thought and companies that they believed in had done a great job and then we opened up another campaign again without being in the press just to go out and you
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could pick this up and then you could give this what's called a v atom um it's a bit of a rarity you could give it to somebody and just add it on and add it on just to make sure that everyone just felt had
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that opportunity of happiness and that's one of the best things about working in ice cream you don't really eat ice cream miserably you eat ice cream puts a bit of smile on your face so we tried our best to be part of the
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community through there and uh and i think that's that's helped to keep um when you're helping others you don't worry too much about yourself and the mental health effects of this is going to come through and hopefully um our guys will
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will have done well through it it's so wonderful and you can see why you know just with initiatives like that you guys are always consistently held up as the gold star set standard in terms of how businesses really can be
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a force for good as well as growth because i think that um certainly as well through you know being conscious about the interdependence of the people around you and your suppliers is obviously becoming a lot more topical now like i recently spoke with um the
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economics of mutuality which is basically the operating philosophy for mars about the fact that everyone in your supply chain needs to be um needs to have a mutual benefit and it's not about squeezing you know people to the
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an inch of their life until they can barely survive um subsistence kind of um mentality so i think that yeah it's just incredible to hear that it's still like you know really in action at ben and jerry's and like it
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has a really meaningful impact to your partners as well as the community and i think that you're probably one of the few brands that probably came out better because of covert because obviously it'd be interesting to hear as well like
Speaker A
so like like a lot of people i downloaded tiktok in march as a joke and then got absolutely obsessed with it and then what i discovered through that was um because the founders of ben and jerry's were arrested at a black lives matter
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protest there was like thousands and thousands of pieces of content from jen from gen z people so like 18 to 24 year olds who had just discovered ben and jerry's and kind of the history of activism um and all the things that you sort of
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do below the watermark like you said you don't pr a lot of this stuff a lot of companies do i find it really crass but i think it's amazing that you guys going up this is what's got to be
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done and we're going to do it this way we don't need anyone to know we're doing it what matters is that we're doing it um so did you find and it was literally like um creators with buckets of ben and
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jerry's like eating a scoop out of every single one like 18 year olds 16 year olds going i don't have any money but i am supporting this brand until the day i die because it almost um provided a portal
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for a whole new generation to actually learn about the history of ben jerry's the fact that you don't do criminal checks when you hire people they understood why your products are slightly more expensive than some mainstream brands because you
Speaker A
pay above the minimum wage so did you find that black lives matter and i guess the discovery of that and um ben and jerry's role within that did that have an impact on sales or any other positive i guess brand
Speaker A
associations or was that kind of a more american kind of impact oh i think the world's certainly getting smaller so what happens in the us you know we've all been watching with trepidation uh the elections and and how things have been going over
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there and um hopefully there's a quick transition um done in the right way um but we certainly we never ever measure our campaigns on on sales that it's that is so so far removed it's purely on systemic change um and it's
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about working with our partners uh to ensure that we are focused on the right things that can move the needle um rather than what's going to help us it's not about us in any way shape or form we've got um you know we've got a really
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engaged phenomenal social mission team the global team and then they've got individuals around all the countries around the globe and then you've got our board of directors our independent board of directors who um so when unilever acquired ben and
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jerry's in 2000 part of the agreement was that ben and jerry's would have an independent board of directors to make sure that what goes into our ice cream and our social mission um and our impact in the world was looked after
Speaker A
and controlled by them and they get picked by ben and jerry um and these guys have got very little business experience they're all eco warriors uh they're all people that live in this space of activism um and i remember talking to uh
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some of the guys that run different countries and they said look we're happy to present our sales numbers this and that without any background i know it all but what i do get scared of and what i do have to prep for days and
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days in advance is when we have to present to the board on our social mission because they know everything and more um because it's not just a case of throwing a campaign out there it's understanding who and how and grabbing
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that granular detail because it's not about ben and jerry's it's about our partners it's about our change where it needs to be so black lives matter absolutely has been a big thing and it's been really hard for for for people in uh in bennett jerry's
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in america some of them really aligned to the black lives matter movement and some of them don't um pecan resist was a really bold movement again and some people liked it and some people didn't but we're not doing there to be
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liked that's the real key to this we're doing it because we believe it's the right thing to do and it goes through a significant amount of checks and balances to say if we do this will it change can we
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impact change in the right way that we're focused on and that change is never aligned to ben and jerry's sales or or awareness or anything any main kpi in normal business would have i'll give you an example when i when i
Speaker A
first started i was there was a three-day gathering at vermont um and this my i was only on board for a couple months by this stage got to fly out to vermont meet the leaders of all the other
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countries um and normally you go to a meeting like that and it's three days of heavy duty power points graphs sales numbers best practice sharing away you go and it's yeah it's not great and uh uh jostein who was the ceo at the
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time stood up and um he almost started crying saying that we just we weren't having enough impact something had happened and we we have to change our focus and have more impact in the community i thought it's a really powerful start
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he's not spoken once about sales so out of the three days we probably spoke about social mission for just over two of those days and the remainder was best practice sharing of what's happening in the communities how we can drive that then it was going out
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to make sure we were part of that and physically doing things in the community so for something that would have cost the company a lot of money to put together the focus wasn't just go ahead and get set up the focus was go out and get
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impact locally for your people with your partners for you um but i think what's been proven is if you do do those things then absolutely you'll be at the forefront of of the gen zed's minds now coming through
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because we stand for something if you don't stand for it then then you'll fall for anything um so i think it's really really good that it's coming through in the right way right reasons it seems like such a simple equation but
Speaker A
everyone has complicated it in terms of like you know how do you garner the um the affinity from gen z it's like just be amazing like at your core right do the right thing and i think with ben and jerry's like
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so um blessed i mean they started this in 1978 like the year that i was born and like before the terms brand activism or brand purpose or csr were coined it was literally as you said you spent two days
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talking about social activism it's just their way of being and i think that's what magnetizes people and that's like what the tick tock creators are doing that's how you get sales you don't need to convince them about your gmo formulations or how delicious
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your pecan resist waivers are they just kind of gravitate to you because your own backyard is just basically built on the foundation of integrity absolutely yeah and it takes years to apply i'm we're lucky that we're coming i'm
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coming at the tail end of those years and years of hard work when it would have been easier to let go and just do the simple the simple opportunity put something less in there don't be fair trade don't be be corp
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it was easier not to but the impact is so great further down the line um and they've always said from the start business has a responsibility to give back so how do we use what we've got which is
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a good brand voice which is us being in 40 plus countries around the world how do we use that in a in a really ethical way to make change for the people that need us the most um and that doesn't change through sales
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but to be honest we do need to balance it we need to prove to the world you can have both because if it's not sustainable people think we're just a charity and that's what you're going to be doing and that's
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not what it's about we want to prove that businesses can do this and that can have that and if we could all see that imagine where the world could be so we're on the forefront trying to prove that on a daily basis
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um that it will be lopsided at times for some for some businesses but if you put doing the right thing first um the the the results do follow yeah it's kind of um it's a paradigm that needs to shift
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which you guys have been doing for 40 years is that there's a misnomer that you're either a charity and you do everything for free or you're a soulless corporate and you earn loads of money whereas it's like well no if you
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actually you know are a business that is about doing the right thing contributing to the community to society to the world um you can be a force for good as well as growth by simply developing profitable solutions that solve problems
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for other people not just yourself 100 and it's not the fast dollar it's the slow dollar you've got to go after it's doing it the right reasons and if companies like ben and jerry's or patagonia or a whole
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list of other amazing companies if we don't stand up and call something bad out then others won't and i think that's really key then that puts a lot of pressure on us to say things at the right time in the
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right way for the right reasons but you know we want to make sure when we do the voice it is is guaranteeing so it wouldn't have been an easy decision to shout out you know dismantle white supremacy i mean it should be a bloody
Speaker A
easy thing to say let's be honest it's a nonsensical thing every couple should be saying that's absolutely got to go you're not allowed to have this that's wrong on so many levels in the u.s and i'm right here as well what's going on in
Speaker A
the u.s but it's pretty obvious from the outside in that that's the bad thing to have um but if we don't call it out who will and therefore it goes quiet and then people just go back into themselves
Speaker A
chase the dollar and that's a scary place to be no and i'm so like i think so many people are happy that a company like ben and jerry's exists because you are literally the benchmark for what companies need to be
Speaker A
moving forward and i think you know the ones that are still stroking their chins about whether or not they should uh do diversity and inclusion if there's an economic benefit to it i mean they're gonna they're gonna i don't think they're
Speaker A
gonna be around in the next five years so good luck to them but i think um with you guys yeah it's tricky right because there's always going to be polarization with you know topics like that but at the end of the day it comes down to
Speaker A
what you really want to stand for and who you're happy to lose it's like strategic sacrifice yeah um so i think you know obviously you touched on unilever buying out ben and jerry's in 2000.
Speaker A
i found a step down in 94. like normally when you read that headline you're like oh that's not gonna end company but obviously it has been like it's turning over like over 681 million dollars of revenue in 2019 and i think i believe there's
Speaker A
also um a requirement to spend over a million dollars at least on social activism every year so how do you find um balancing it feels like that independent board does it it's a way to kind of um balance the
Speaker A
grassroots social activism dna that it was born with um with i guess the needs of a multinational corporate agenda because you really it's really then you measure what you treasure right so if you're really measuring social activism and change and outcomes
Speaker A
then i guess that's always the efforts for to drive sales are always going to be tempered by that would that be correct to say yeah without a doubt you know there was a there was a certainly a fear and even listening to
Speaker A
some of the podcasts from ben and jerry um how i built this and others reading the books um there was a fear when unilever came in this big conglomerate coming in there and it's going to be right actually let's strip out all the
Speaker A
goodness out of it let's just get as many cells as we can and stand for something that ben and jerry's has fought against their whole lives um and i think that's definitely one of the cleverest things they've ever done is
Speaker A
putting that board of directors in there you know there are times that unilever will challenge us for good reason to to think things differently and we'll disagree and if it gets down to we can pick up the phone the board of directors and the
Speaker A
border director can look at that and say no you you don't do that the ice cream our ice cream is thick and creamy and we don't put extra air in it so like gelato be tall and looks like there's loads in there but
Speaker A
it's the same amount just with loads of air in them so we could do the same and we could fill that pint with air and make some more money but we will not do that that's not who we are we fill it with pints
Speaker A
uh fill our pints with um all of our uh ingredients um love with care you know with the right things not not trying to make money um but what it has done if you look at a company the size of
Speaker A
unilever which has a lot of negatives around the plastic impact environmental impact it but unilever's changed dramatically and you know i wasn't there back in the times but you know you leave a sustainable living plan to is really the forefront
Speaker A
way way ahead of our competitors to try and make change there's got to be something about ben and jerry's this influence that um we are doing it now we've always had purpose in ben and jerry's there isn't a
Speaker A
brand in unilever going forward that won't have a purpose we've got to have purpose to to give you a foundation of why you're doing this we're not just scooping an ice cream in the scoop shops you're scooping something that's going to change the
Speaker A
world and you've seen that the brands grow because of that they have impact and as you're actually right about the gen z they're going to come through and you're going to see through these um core values people will
Speaker A
post onto the wall as a wallpaper and it won't stand for anything but you know ben and joe's been doing it all the way through so i think we've influenced unilever and there's a fair few different reviews on
Speaker A
you know harvard studies on on the impact but actually it seems to be in a really good place that unilever has unlocked lots of opportunities for ben and jerry's and it may have been there to unlock lots of sales opportunities for ben and
Speaker A
jerry's but what it has done then has unlocked impact opportunities across the globe whether you're looking at the different brand values that we're going to and every single place we go to has to have a social mission of focus
Speaker A
it's that's pretty exciting um and ben and jerry's have managed to keep hold of what makes us ben and jerry's that's what's the point now where you're gonna leave a like right how do we make you more better jose what else can we do to make
Speaker A
you and that's brilliant you know we've really influenced one of the biggest players in the world um to do things in the right way in a sustainable way outside of ben and jerry's and allowed us to play exactly who we
Speaker A
are it's really clever um so i think it would have been the time seen it's a real scary negative certainly uh it's worked its way out very very well through some really strong positive leadership yeah i guess um you
Speaker A
guys ben and jerry's would have been like the little rock star child of the group of the brand portfolio you know you're like they're really good a lot of people love them and they're making a lot of money but
Speaker A
we're not entirely sure how we can control the films yeah they're unruly stop saying those things stop doing those things but you know you're doing it and we keep saying it but um yeah awards come because we we drive change
Speaker A
and people love us because of who we are what we stand for yeah and what are some of the local um like anz success stories about how the ben and jerry's values have been reapplied here like in terms of the
Speaker A
diversity of your store owners and any initiatives or success stories um so far in the anz region yeah pretty diverse we'll take anybody is this um when we go through we've got a pretty um strict uh interview process we've got
Speaker A
some great partners to help us with that and again in in franchising you could just say have you got any money brilliantly where you go and that's not us you know we want to make sure you are aligned
Speaker A
does it matter to you the environmental impact does it matter to you how you're working with the community does it matter to you when you put in the ingredients or the standards and if it does matter to you and you want
Speaker A
the change and you just can't quite understand how to do it then we're in a real sweet spot um and then we want to help you to get in you know with ben and jerry's and amplify who you are
Speaker A
and how you can do that we've got some really cool franchisees um and staff and we've got social mission managers focus people in every single store and whether it be coming in and choosing there's a it's important pause to drink covered
Speaker A
because of everything to do with covid but whether it be locally we're supporting this or supporting that people will come in there and they'll they'll get a little uh ice cream stick and they'll be put in there at the end
Speaker A
of the month we'll see who's winning we're going to support them locally and that's chosen by the staff by the uh whether it be a referral and the franchisees then go and support that and it's really important that
Speaker A
keeps going through on on a bigger scale though i wanted to double down on how to make us more australian and new zealand um because again i'm very conscious of being an englishman driving an american brand uh we have a
Speaker A
thing called values led sourcing so everything we get it's got to come from a values-led place it'd be easier and cheaper for me just to buy x and get it into the store and sell for y but that's not what we're about
Speaker A
and for example uh all the brownies in every packaged pint that you eat uh in australia comes uh is made in a place in yonkers um graced in bakery and we basically have a bakery to give people jobs rather than give
Speaker A
people jobs to have a bakery so you can just put your name down on the list as a matter what your background is you've been struggling sleeping on the streets whatever it is you need to get backings we know that jobs give you your life
Speaker A
back gives you money gives you opportunity to be where you need to be and grow and so if your name's next on the list you're called up and you come bam you've got a job and so if that's if that's the the way
Speaker A
we'd like it to work we're going to replicate that here and i really didn't like constantly talking about what's going on in america i'd like to say what's going on in australia and in new zealand and so you'll do things like with pure
Speaker A
potentially could be making our brownies and cookies in in australia um if it can't be um helping people it might just be a case of not damaging the environment so we had bottled water um we had thank you
Speaker A
water which was amazing i know they've just pulled out of this but about a year and a half ago we said we just didn't couldn't have that plastic in our store anymore and we looked at who was local we found a company
Speaker A
that we believed in wallaby water who were doing canned water which nobody really had done at the time um coming out just north of melbourne which is a really cool guy called dom and so shut away we just pivoted out
Speaker A
that and we did the right thing for a local and having less negative environmental impact but then you'll do things like liminal support all of our um t-shirts our hats we want to try and get from them who are
Speaker A
fair trade trying to give back doing them i mean super cool organic just one of the best companies you can talk to um so inspirational um and then you've got places like trade school kitchen across in new zealand
Speaker A
who you know we're really looking to partner with a little bit further um to supply our cookies and brownies potentially over there um to who help with um the social change we think is is probably needed don't get me wrong i've
Speaker A
got a major um leadership crush on jacinda what she does but uh a big gap in in for some people at the lower end of the socio-economic scale and to go from school to prison is pretty is pretty much guaranteed at times and
Speaker A
we want to help change that with our partners and see how to do so we'll work with them to uh right now we've got values led hiring we've just hired our first um our first person down in our wellington store for um on
Speaker A
to soon to be opened wellington still from trade school kitchen which would be brilliant that'll change that person's life if we can look after them we'll love them and give them the skills that they need and hopefully there'll be more coming
Speaker A
from there or the bauer which is um you know we're working with this a company called the bauer in australia they make all of our woodwork now for our advertising boards or sandwich boards um and we've just employed somebody to help
Speaker A
values led build uh new store that's coming in newtown so all these things we're trying to do to be local and to have impact and it's so easy not to do it because it's faster and cheaper but for
Speaker A
that person and this is why i just it's really hard to get across with people but put yourself in in their their shoes i don't have the opportunity i can't get that job i can't earn any more money and
Speaker A
2020 has also ruined so many opportunities that could have been there we have a right to find the opportunity and give it to them you know we're going to spend that money no matter what you know we're going to
Speaker A
build that store no matter what how can i buy that thing that's going to really impact somebody more than just the average transaction um and so hard so complicated takes such a long time but for that person it changes the world
Speaker A
and i think that's the most exciting part yeah and i think it makes so much sense like listening to you talk about complexity about how you make these decisions across partnerships and value chains and how you kind of go after sales and
Speaker A
with the balance of social activism i think i read that your global head of activism christopher miller said we don't use agencies to do our brand purpose stuff we do that ourselves because we don't see that as a marketing exercise
Speaker A
it's just a way of being so i think you know you touched on an initiative called pure but with the pure foundation and that's being led by matthew and his team beck and petra so how did you um
Speaker A
given that ben and jerry's kind of take the responsibility for deciding what initiatives and partnerships to to do rather than an advertising or a marketing agency what about the initiative with pure i believe it's called stores for change
Speaker A
yeah that's the next one we're working on right now absolutely yeah so what about that initiative and what about pure meiji made you go this is what we've got to get behind from a ben and jerry's perspective yeah
Speaker A
i've been to a couple of cafes run by pure at the time and i've been speaking i always talked to to the people that work there and they were just um they were just great people shared their praise they looked great um
Speaker A
about what they were doing it really aligned i was recommending people to go there check this cafe out talk to these people i thought maybe i need to go meet uh whoever is running this because it really is
Speaker A
how can i stand to believe in who and how they were i wanted to make sure it was real and i want to see then if that is the case how can then i add more value how can i
Speaker A
amplify this opportunity with them i went down to meet matt in the cbd um and matt matt i mean he just shares it shares it all with you shows what he's got the ecosystem and i came away from that just
Speaker A
astounded um the amount of work and energy that have gone in to create that opportunity in that way would have been extraordinary and it would have been so easy to not do it that way um so i was i was
Speaker A
really impressed with what they had and i went away and i spoke to a lot of people internally i said we've got to do more how can we do more so we're looking at potentially the brownies and cookies can
Speaker A
if we if they make them for us could they then employ more people um and therefore give them a skill escape give them a job help through where they are great we could do potentially do that i mean that's not
Speaker A
easy we still worked on that with them um and then if you think about how do we amplify it further all they want to do is give people jobs you know they've just got to earn enough money to give these people their jobs
Speaker A
hopefully more on top to put back into their ecosystem so how can we do this and um you know our opportunities have been lessened with with covid but one opportunity is coming to the forefront and again got to give it to the
Speaker A
government there's some opportunities there the government creating to get people into work particularly some of the communities that pure support but well if our franchisees are successful financially one of the workstreams we had is how do we break that glass ceiling and have it
Speaker A
for the everyday person because i know if i was growing up when i was growing up i said even now i can't afford a you know a better joe's franchise but i know if i had that grown up i
Speaker A
would have worked harder than anybody else i would have been more passionate about it and i would have amplified that brand even greater than any of our franchisees now so if there's plenty of people like me out there how do i give them the opportunity
Speaker A
um and i just coupled and then actually i've got these people right here with uh with pure maybe if we can overcome this barrier this entry um and then these these guys can get one in um and run this and then
Speaker A
employ hopefully could be dozens or hundreds of people through this to help set them up and so the stores for change is an opportunity where we can work with our partners to try and set up the best trade deals
Speaker A
knowing that this is trying to not make money but to give people opportunities and then everyone that goes into there and it'll be a ben and jerry's buy pure or something on those lines we'll know that ice cream tastes even
Speaker A
greater than it already does because you're helping every single person in there to get some skills there to have a job to pay for their rent and their shop weekly shopping and be part of that community and those
Speaker A
people will grow and benefit because of this relationship and that's the sort of thing that keeps you awake at night thinking about how can we how can we do it let's get let's get it started so um and that just came from the desire from
Speaker A
us to help the right people and map just being the inspirational character that he is and i think it's very much aligned with ben and jerry's barn raising principle where you don't just go in and try to save you everything you just sort of you
Speaker A
work with people who are very deep and very you know have incredible level of expertise in this place so for the people that don't know pure they basically run employment and training pathways for what they what they describe as those that have
Speaker A
fallen through the gaps of society so whether it's refugees asylum seekers indigenous community members and people with learning disabilities and so that the plan for stores for change is to i guess be an exclusive manufacturer of cookies and cream yeah
Speaker A
yeah yeah absolutely so we want to be a supplier if they can that will hopefully um employ as many people as they can to make these and whether we can get them a qualifications or or just jobs and also
Speaker A
the opportunity for them for pure to own the store and have all these people come in there and work actually serving the ice cream serving coffee making money in the local community having impact it's it's just it makes so much sense
Speaker A
it's really exciting so cool and i think that um with people like you and matt you just are the way you are because you're humble you're amazing you're good-hearted you just get on with it like you doing what you're doing with
Speaker A
stores for change and all the other things um that you're working on with ben and jerry's is just your way of being but i think you know for so many people um they probably don't have that i guess um
Speaker A
not that they should people but they probably are a little bit more guarded um in terms of you know how they can champion initiatives like this do you have any advice from i guess your experience for doing this for so many years and on
Speaker A
working life initiatives like stores complained about the benefits of actually trying to and you called it the slow dollar pursuing the slow dollar and doing things that are outside i guess what would normally be considered business as usual because
Speaker A
i mean something like stores have changed so easy to put into your hard basket there's so much complexity around it you know and philanthropy is not easy like to do like you've got to really take a lot of time to understand you
Speaker A
know the i guess the impact you're trying to have by understanding the issues and the people surrounding the issues so is there sort of any learnings that you've gained over your career and your experience with these initiatives for people that are
Speaker A
kind of got that niggling feeling that they want to do it that are worried that it might be too hard or too difficult yeah i think that it's it's always going to be too difficult yeah um and and so you let
Speaker A
um good perfection be the enemy of good we can still be better one step is better we've got all the different we go back to the inspirational quotes of throwing a starfish back in the sea one at some
Speaker A
it's all out there but the reality is not just about how it changes you that one step forward but how it changes for other people and if you can't afford to buy fair trade i i do understand you know i
Speaker A
didn't grow up with a lot of money i had to fight for every opportunity that um that my family and i have got now and um you know we're in a privileged position and i i was we had a we had a meeting um
Speaker A
an interview with tony chocaloni which is a dutch chocolate brand who is about breaking slavery in the cocoa trade phenomena i mean some of the nicest tasting chocolate you'll ever have they don't spend money above the line they just drive
Speaker A
stop buying non-fair trade chocolate just get it out stop buying slavery and you can go you can't buy a bike that you know is stolen in the street but you can go and buy chocolate that you know has been stolen
Speaker A
from somebody and now that this is really straightforward but how do you translate that out and he said something that really resonated with me um and particularly uh coming from where we will come from now we're probably in the
Speaker A
top one two three percent earners five percent earners in the world that means you've got a responsibility for that other 95 percent of people to help them be better so what are you doing for 95 of your time what are you doing to help
Speaker A
those other people out because if you don't help others out the world goes in a very donald trump way and it becomes very very insular um and and that scares scares me a lot we've got young kids now that i want to grow up be
Speaker A
good people have impact so if your first thought is how can i set other people up for success you're going to go further in your life that's as simple as that but if you are fearful and you don't
Speaker A
know what to do and you keep thinking well i've got to do this and i've got to do this and i've got to do this you don't have to do it all you can just do one thing just be one
Speaker A
one percent better that's all that's all it is um and if we can all start to do that the world becomes quite easy and quite simple um but uh i was talking to a um another brand who was saying how do
Speaker A
we get into this how do we do we have to go fully b corp do we have to do this should we do that i thought you're never going to do that you're never going to get that tomorrow
Speaker A
you've just got to be better than you were yesterday and i think if every brand can use their voice if every person can have that a little bit of an impact um don't stop because it's scary don't stop because it's hard is it the
Speaker A
right thing to do have you got that integrity and that takes a long time to build up because i would always chase after a quick opportunity beforehand until i learned the impact of those things so don't be afraid of those things and
Speaker A
then when you do do it that feeling a feeling of this is better than diving over scoring the winning try that feeling of watching someone's hearts well because you've given them the opportunity that you've changed their life you can't
Speaker A
buy that so it's worth the hard work it's worth the effort and such an incredible i think shift that you can feel is happening in society i think that there is though i love what you said about just being
Speaker A
one percent better than you were the day before because i think there is a big majority i'm calling them the new conscious majority they know something's up they want to do something they're good people i inherently believe that most people are good but i
Speaker A
think there's a huge majority sitting in the middle that are just paralyzed into inaction for fear of being called out as being performing performative and i think to your point if you just really dial it back in terms of like laddering it from a
Speaker A
place of integrity and what is the right thing to do and just embracing the fact that it is going to be difficult there is no cheat sheet for doing this well because it's going to be messy it's going to be a slow dollar burn it's
Speaker A
going to involve a lot of conversations a lot of you know compromises potentially along the way but it will be worth it in the end because it's benefiting all of us at the end of the day and what else is
Speaker A
there like yeah like you know like in terms of increasing market share awards or whatever that's all nice and that's all good but at the end of the day we're all trying to build a world for the next generation
Speaker A
to grow up and feel that they belong and they can be happy and they can pursue a life on their terms and have access to all the opportunities um to unlock their potential without being inhibited by you know economic or social
Speaker A
parameters or constructs or systemic racism yeah 100 yeah it's just too easy to buy that fruit with becomes already wrapped in plastic yeah it's too easy to not spend extra money only the fair trade because i haven't got extra money it's too weak
Speaker A
there's so many reasons not to do it you do find it inspirational if you do think it's that the right thing to do it does give you the good feeling that you've given back that to somebody else um imagine how
Speaker A
inspirational you are being to those people so just keep remembering it's not just about you it's about your impact and they're feeling it at the other end of the scale um i think that's what gets me through when i'm trying to talk to my kids about
Speaker A
why that's important or why this is important they can just roll their eyes or my little half-sister she's not little anymore but she's a big half-sister but she you know what why why are you doing this really is it really worth it
Speaker A
and then and then when you see that the end product and end impact then there's that moment of enlightenment and it's been worth it well um sean i think you're incredible i'm so glad people like you exist in the world where you
Speaker A
exist in the world and that you're just doing these things intuitively without any want or reward apart from the fact that it's the right thing to do i know matt is so grateful for you humanity is grateful to you for doing
Speaker A
what you're doing i just wanted to say thank you so much for your time i can't wait to see what else you do in anz with ben and jerry's and i will be watching eagerly i know it will be incredible
Speaker A
although you won't advertise it so i'm going to have to go hunting for it or speak to matt about what you're doing but um yeah i think you're incredible thank you so much for everything that you're doing through ben and
Speaker A
jerry's and also with matt um and thanks for being an amazing human being in your time no thank you thank you for for being so kind and give us opportunity to talk more about the good people people like you so
Speaker A
please stay in the game i'll do my best [Laughter] well thank you so much it was such a pleasure to talk to you and um i hope you have an amazing week thanks jen you take care thanks bye
Topics:Sean FarrellBen & Jerry'sretail managementANZcustomer experienceretail leadershipfranchise managementsocial missionStores for Changeretail career growth
