Editor's Plate: Who Wasn't at CAGNY 2020 As Important as Who Was

We covered the 2020 Consumer Analyst Group of New York meeting in our news pages. You can read the breakdowns below:

CAGNY Day 1: Food CEOs Are Upbeat
CAGNY Day 2: Bumps in the Road for Tyson, Kellogg, J.M. Smucker
CAGNY Day 3: TreeHouse Foods and PepsiCo Moving in Opposite Directions
CAGNY Day 4: Coca-Cola and Nestle Sail Along

In our reports, we provided the guidance the CEOs and CFOs in attendance gave to the financial analysts there. Perhaps just as important is who didn’t show up this year and apparently why.

The CAGNY meeting is one of my favorites – and not just because it takes me from Chicago in mid-February to Boca Raton, Fla. The speakers at the podium are my rock stars, and while their presentations are carefully scripted, they do reveal some strategies and news for the year just under way.

Campbell Soup used to be an annual attendee and often sponsored one of the lunches, usually featuring some of the company’s products. But Campbell hasn’t been at CAGNY since ... well, since Denise Morrison was president/CEO. She was removed three months after she spoke at the 2018 CAGNY meeting. Mark Clouse, who replaced her a few months later, hasn’t attended yet. But he’s been busy retooling the company, so maybe he’ll speak when he’s got things in hand.

Last year we made quite a big deal over the appearances of Constellation Brands – which had been to CAGNY before – and first-timer Canopy Growth Corp., the Canadian marijuana company in which Constellation invested $4 billion. Back then, Bill Newlands, the CEO of Constellation, called the legalization of marijuana in Canada and the potential for same in the U.S. “an opportunity unheard of in our lifetime.” And I think everyone at CAGNY agreed.

In the year since, even the Canadian market for cannabis-containing foods and beverages hasn’t developed according to expectations (which we reported about in our February cover story) and the Canopy investment has weighed heavily on Constellation’s financials. Canopy’s founder/chairman/co-CEO, who spoke at CAGNY 2019, was removed in the middle of last year and was replaced early this year by a longtime Constellation executive. So this wasn’t a good time.

Back when its founder, Irwin Simon, was still the CEO, Hain Celestial Group was a near-annual attendee. But that once high-flyer also has been in a rebuild, and new CEO Mark Schiller hasn’t made the Florida trip yet.

Hershey has no reason to avoid the conference, but Chairman/CEO Michele Buck took a pass this year. The company has posted at least four straight years of revenue growth, just shy of $8 billion in total sales last year. And although 2019 net income dipped $28 million or so, it’s still above $1 billion. So I don’t think she’s worried about the T&E budget, either.

Danone has been to CAGNY a couple of times but isn’t an annual presenter. Emmanuel Faber, chairman & CEO, spoke last year shortly after the acquisition of WhiteWave, but didn’t make the trip this year. Perhaps he didn’t want all the greenhouse gases that go with trans-Atlantic travel, because the financials are just fine.

Coronavirus hits the food and beverage industry

If there’s one annual event that edges out CAGNY in my list of favorites, it’s Natural Products Expo West. So I was saddened to learn that the show was canceled – postponed, actually, to some date in the future. We have a handful of stories about coronavirus you can find in our news section:

Snaxpo Canceled Over Virus Fears
Natural Products Expo West Postponed
Coronavirus Fears Decimating Natural Products Expo West
Food Stocks Get Bump from Coronavirus
Food and Beverage Companies Feel the Impact of Coronavirus
Legal/Consulting Help Available for Food Companies During the Coronavirus Outbreak

Many of you are familiar with Expo West – 86,000 attendees and 3,500 exhibitors were there last year. Those numbers make it probably the largest food show on this continent and one of the largest trade shows of any kind in America.

Postponing seemed like the right thing to do, as hundreds of exhibitors had pulled out in the days just before the opening. Even I was getting a little jittery, thinking of all the potentially sick folks I’d run into at O’Hare or LAX airports, then sampling food handled by 86,000 people.

As I write this in early March, the situation seems to change daily. The worst is not over yet; I hope it is by the time you read this. The actual numbers of infected people and even deaths pale compared to the annual flu, but there’s something scarier about this outbreak. Is there any possibility it will impact food safety? It doesn’t look like it, but this outbreak has brought a lot of surprises. So stay vigilant on the food safety front!

Dave Fusaro is the Editor in Chief of Food Processing magazine. A lifelong journalist, Dave was editor in chief of Dairy Foods 1996-2001 and managing editor of Prepared Foods 1993-1995. Before and after that stint, he worked at Putman's Control magazine, most recently as its executive editor. Learn more about him or contact him