Marketing is often confused with promotion, but really it's about much more than that. Marketing is about knowing and understanding your customers so well, that your product or service fits them and ultimately sells itself. In short, marketing is about insights above all else.
In the spirit of those insights, we present our Meet the Marketer series where we discuss the careers and tactics of marketers behind industry leading brands. In this episode, we chat with Daniel Barba, Vice President of Marketing at Bob's Red Mill. A seasoned CPG expert, Daniel has built and revitalized brands across food and beverage and entertainment. With leadership experience at Coca-Cola and Kellogg's, he has a proven ability to drive growth, optimize portfolios, and transform struggling brands into category leaders. We'll hear how Daniel's passion for market intelligence, consumer focused strategy, and cultural change has shaped his leadership.
What drew you to this role at Bob's Red Mill?
Reid Carr: Yeah, well, so let's just jump right in. I mean, you've worked across various CPG brands and categories including personal care to beverages and food by way of Alberto Culver among others where you're now VP of marketing at Bob's Red Mill. Having joined the company in 2024, what drew you to this company and this role and how does it differ from some of these past experiences?
Daniel Barba: Yeah, I appreciate the question and it's been a fun journey for me. What's about to be 20 years in marketing in June, and I've always had the pleasure of just working in brands, big and small, but my heart has always been in the emerging brand space. When it comes to Bob's Red Mill, the company is one that I admired for a long time, for the better part of really the 15 years that I've actually been in food, the food space. It's got a great founder story with Bob and Charlie Moore and an incredible legacy of just creating quality foods made with whole grains. As you think about pantry staples that we make, like oats flour, pancake mixes, heck, we even have popcorn in an egg replacer, which is very timely right now. It's an incredible place for me to be.
The thing that drew me to this role is that it's a company that's been around for over four decades, but still feels like a startup. And when you think about being on bigger brands or a little bit more established, there's more process. It just takes more to get things done. What I love about a company like Bob's Red Mill in this particular role is that you can make an immediate impact, and that's what I've loved about it from innovation to some of the marketing that we're doing to evolve the brand. It's something that I can, I'm talking about it one minute, we're implementing it the next, and so that's one of the things that really drew me to this role.
What are Key Lessons You've Learned From Past Roles?
Reid Carr: From all those past roles, what are some of the key lessons then you've been able to apply in this new environment?
Daniel Barba: I thought about that and what really has helped me, especially in this role. I thought about a couple of things. One is a lesson that I learned from a key leader around being bold. Early on in my career, I probably took a little bit more of a cautious approach and just trying to figure out how am I going to make that number, how am I going to make the year, versus really kind of pushing myself to think about what do I really want to do? What do I really think is going to move this brand? And so I take those words to heart around just being bold in my ambition and what I'm asking my leadership team to have faith in me to help push a brand forward.
The second is investing a disproportionate amount of time into developing the team. When you're a new leader, especially a senior leader coming into an organization, it's a little bit of anxiety provoking for the team. And so I make it a point, and especially this particular role, I made it a point to meet with every single one of my team members personally in the first 30 to 45 days. And what that does is just, it gives me a chance to get to know who I have on the team, gets a chance to know the talent, where the pinch points are, and it gives me a chance to really know the organization before I'm really starting to make changes. What that does is helps me to build community as a leader and helps me to build confidence when times get tough.
The third piece that I thought about is investing in your network consistently. And we're marketers, we're in one of the most dynamic fields out there, period. Things are always changing and it's hard to keep up. And so when you think about being successful, you're not going to be able to be an expert at everything as much as we'd like to be, but it's knowing who is in your network is an expert, who can you turn to trust so when the time comes and you realize you need some help, you know who to call, and it's more than just a LinkedIn connection, it's actually having that personal connection that's really going to make a difference.
So those are some of the things that I thought about that have already helped me in this role, and I think would certainly help others in a similar position.
Reid Carr: I mean, I always think about how it's not necessarily knowing everything, it's just knowing where to go get that information. And then I think certainly in the era of trust, can you trust the information that you gather. I guess we're entering this AI era, but sometimes you just got to catch up with somebody who actually knows the real deal on things.
Daniel Barba: Sometimes it's great to just actually use the phone for what it was intended, pick up the phone, talk to a human, hear their voice, see their face. And it really helps when times get tough or when you just need a real answer that you can trust.
How do you push for your bold ideas?
Reid Carr: I think the building on trust, and one of the first things you talked about is being bold in an environment like this, maybe when you have a bold idea and that comes along with risk, what does that look like at Bob's Red Mill as, Hey, I have this new idea, you assembling the troops. How do you get something pushed through that you think is particularly bold?
Daniel Barba: That's the beauty of being a smaller team and being more nimble and just being able to have a conversation about it. So in a bigger brand, it's Alright, let me get the strategy together. Let me put this 20 a page PowerPoint deck together and let's assemble the troops and let's kind of work that way up here. It's a little bit more nimble. Do we have some of that? Sure. But it's really more about, Hey, I've got this great idea. Let's get the key people together and let's talk about making it happen. And when it comes to things like our innovation, I'll give an example of our protein oats that we launched within the last year and a half. This is something that our suppliers came to us with and thought: Hey, this is a great product for you. We think it's going to be relevant to consumers right now. What do you think? And initially it was like, okay, interesting idea. And then there was a bit of a groundswell against it and really pushed to get it out there, start gaining distribution to start gaining momentum, and now it's one of our top sellers. And that's something you can do when you have a little bit more of a nimble type of a structure to you.
Reid Carr: I have to think that that feels pretty rewarding when you walk down the aisle and see something that you kind of started at that sort of a seed and then germinated through a team and the groundswell that you talked about to then see it yield those kind of results and see consumer's reaction to it.
Daniel Barba: Absolutely. I mean, 20 years later in marketing, that never gets old.
I love going down the aisle, whether it's in beauty care, whether it's in some of the work that I did at Coca-Cola or Kellogg. It's awesome to see when you have something that you worked and you put your heart and soul in on the shelf even better when someone's actually picking up your product when you're shopping and to see someone enjoy your product that never gets old.
How does employee ownership affect your approach?
Reid Carr: Oh, that's great. So I mean that's idea of ownership, but also Bob's Red Mill, I mean, they're a employee owned company as well, and so that's fascinating. I mean, it's pretty rare in corporate America for this to happen. I think we know a few of them here in San Diego. Within the Bob's Red Mill structure, how does the employee ownership structure change your approach in any way? Or does it change how your employees view marketing?
Daniel Barba: Yeah it's something that is near and dear to our hearts and something that we take a lot of pride in. When our founder started this process in 2010, it was an incredible thing for the company. And as of 2020, we're a hundred percent employee owned. So we have 700 employee owners here at Bob's Red Mill. We truly are owners and stakeholders in the company's success. We create a culture of shared accountability. The passion, the trust, and the pride that kind of comes along with that is really something that is special to us. And from a marketing perspective, for us, it reinforces authenticity.
And when you think about our story, it's not just about being successful and being a brand that's been around for over four decades. There's real people behind it. And that really helps to drive a lot of the story and what people really appreciate about us, especially when I talk about the brand, it's like they can see that they're real people. Our founder was a real person, not just a picture on a package. He was a real person. And that shines through.
How Does your Founder Impact the Brand?
Reid Carr: Yeah, that's amazing. So that I want to hear about Bob, I mean, I think there are plenty of companies out there that have their founder's names on the door on packages. I mean, here in San Diego and in golf we've got Scotty Cameron and Bob Vokey. But there does seem to be something different when the founder's such a part of the brand. I mean, how does that apply here?
Daniel Barba: Well, it's such an incredible story and for those who are interested in learning a little bit more about his story, there's a book called People Before Profit that just really highlights the journey that he and his wife and his family took to get to building this amazing company. And a lot of that was just his sheer passion and his desire to have better foods for his family and his community. It started off with his wife, with Bob's wife, Charlie wanting to get he and his family in a more healthy place. And it just kind of went from there, just high quality ingredients, better grains and something that he lived and just he'd talk about unprocessed, and while we all know that, yes, when you're a consumer packaged goods environment, you have a little bit of processing, but nonetheless, it was that foundation of keep more of the good stuff in and something that he believed in throughout his entire life. I mean, he lived 94 years, so that alone should be a testament to the quality of the products that he ate and shared with his community on a daily basis and the legacy that it leaves us today.
How do you handle decision-making while maintaining brand vision?
Reid Carr: Yeah. Oh, that's amazing. I love that story and I think that it feels that way. I think at the consumer level when I consume the product. I mean, you certainly see his picture there and I know it kind of makes me happy in a way. I don't know what to say. So one of the things that you talk about is feeding his family and also feeding the community as well.
I mean, in a broader sense, I think one of the community icons is certainly the store that you had there, and I know that recently closed, but the brand is such an icon and there are decisions that you have to make day in and day out. You talked about the core being this healthy food, but again, also you have to make some big decisions sometimes in alignment with that. So maybe you can talk a little bit about the decision to close the restaurant specifically in the store there and how that aligns with the vision.
Daniel Barba: Sometimes you have to make really tough decisions when you're running a business. And the restaurant was a dream for Bob and Charlie Moore. It was something that they created as a community gathering place. He would play piano there. We had all of our products being sold there, so you had a chance for employee owners and the community to really partake in our foods and at the restaurant meals that were made with our ingredients. And so as we were thinking about where we want to go and how we want to evolve the brand, it's really about our core business, our core retail business. And it's always been that. And in the early days it was just we were smaller and it was a little harder to get access to all of our products. And so that was one of the reasons why the store was built.
But many restaurant owners across the country know it's a hard business, it's a very challenging business. It's not always profitable, as was the case here. And so for us, we wanted to make sure that with more of our products available across the country and stores that most people have access to, we're able to evolve to a place where we felt that we needed to focus more on that core. And so we made the hard decision to close the store. And for us as part of that, we wanted to make sure that we still had continuity and how we supported the community. And so we, as part of that, we established a community fund to be able to support those who were affected by that, where we can continue to support events in the community, different groups that would often frequent our store, and we continue to find ways to make our foods accessible.
So it's one of those challenges that was a difficult decision for us, but we believe as we evolve as a brand that it's going to be best for the business and still we're going to continue to be at the heart of our communities and supporting them in their efforts.
How does your product translate globally?
Reid Carr: Oh, that's amazing. I mean, you don't always hear brands being that thoughtful about how they kind of offboard, and with the original spirit being part of that community, now you're supporting the community as it is just in different ways. And now your community, as you just said, has gotten much bigger. You guys are distributed internationally. How does a brand like Bob's Red Mill out of Portland, Oregon translate into other areas of the world? And are there any interesting stories about entering some of these new markets?
Daniel Barba: Well, it's always a challenge, whether it just be different tastes or different regulatory challenges we have to go through as you're expanding, putting your packaging in different languages or just catering to different tastes. For us, we might be a little bit more progressive. We're in Canada, it might be they've got a very large oat business, and so it might be a bit more of a focus on some of our specialty foods and ingredients. And so it's always a challenge for us to ensure that we are delivering in a way that is impactful in that market, whether it's a packaging size, the types of foods, the way that we come to market, and just be thoughtful to do it in a way that is sustainable for us and also just as impactful in our communities as well.
So it's something that we're continuing to learn and evolve from, but something that is, we take a lot of pride when we enter a new country or we bring a new product into a new consumer base that helps us to grow our brand, but still keep in firm with our foundational goals around just high quality ingredients, more of the good stuff, and keeping us relevant with consumers, with their ever-changing taste.
Has anything in global communities surprised you?
Reid Carr: Has anything in any of those communities surprised you?
Daniel Barba: I think being in consumer packaged goods for 20 years, there's always a surprise. But no, I think it goes back to some of the fundamentals around just being open and listening to what consumer needs are.
A good example is in Latin America, we have recently tried out some of our different oatmeals, and the response has been great around, look at the quality. I love what I've been able to do with this, but for some, the package might be a little bit too much depending on where they live or the size of their home or their pantry. And so just thinking about not just the right product, but also what is the right way to deliver that in a way that's going to be impactful to the consumer? So that's a recent example that I could think about of something that we're working on and trying to tailor it to better fit the needs of that consumer.
What is your strategy for keeping Bib's Red Mill Top of Mind?
Reid Carr: Yeah. Well, yeah, you're out there trying to reach more consumers that haven't originally been exposed to the brand. With so many brands competing in this category for that attention, what's your strategy for keeping Bob's Red Mill top of consumer minds as, I mean, there's so many distractions out there?
Daniel Barba: It's always a challenge for marketers and thinking about how to keep your brand relevant. And for us, as we talked about as we started the conversation around just the power of the legacy of this company, the foundation that the Moores left this company. And it's incredible to see when I speak about the brand, we had our largest trade show a couple of weeks ago, Natural Products Expo West, and to see the stories of people coming and talking about how much it's impacted their lives because we've been known as more of having a good reputation for catering to specialty diets. And for us, that's still going to be a big part of who we are.
As we continue to evolve, we've started to come into areas where it appeals to a broader audience, more of our homemade foods. So our pancakes mixes are just add water pancake mixes or revamped instant oatmeals, just ways to be a bit more relevant to the consumer.
And just kind of changing that message around, we're more than just an ingredient brand. We're really a brand that is about communities and bringing people together. And that's always been a part of our foundation as well. And that messaging is definitely resonating, and I take it to heart and it's something that we believe is very near and dear to us and who we are as a brand in an authentic way. So as I think about the foods that we produce, how we message to consumers, it's really about that just continuing to find ways to be relevant, staying true to who we are and to the heart of who we are, but reaching out to a broader audience and around something that is like community building that has just been part of the foundation of who we are as a company and certainly core to who the Moores were as founders.
Reid Carr: Well that's interesting. I mean, I don't always think of a brand like that to be food and community, but then you think about your experiences with food, a lot of times it's around a table and building community.
Daniel Barba: Absolutely, absolutely. And there's always room for one more at the table, right? That's, and as you think about what we've been able to do even in the foundations of this brand, there was a time when the mill burned down in 1988 and Bob and Charlie Moore could have just called it a day and said, all right, we've done our job. This is going to be too hard. No, they rebuilt the company and it was really in the spirit of this means something to the community. This is something that is going to be impactful for a long time. Let's get back in it. Let's rebuild.
And it continues today, even with the LA fires, we had folks on the ground from our team delivering Bob's Red Mill foods to the affected people we donated to the cause to World Central Kitchen, to hose Jose dress. And for us, it's more than just food. It really is about our communities and more than just the folks in Milwaukee and Portland, Oregon. It's really much broader than that.
Are you seeing shifts in how consumers engage with the brand?
Reid Carr: You've definitely feel the sense of purpose as you talk about that. And that does for, I think anyone keeps you going and when you see there's an opportunity, I think it really refines the purpose of the organization, aligns the people behind it, and it certainly gives you a platform from a marketing standpoint to engage with consumers and tell that story. I mean, are you seeing shifts in how consumers engage with Bob's Red Mill? Certainly on the back of some of these activities that you're talking about now, but also how you're balancing even traditional retail distribution to direct to consumer are other ways of reaching the consumer?
Daniel Barba: Yeah, that's part of the challenge is you just have to think about how you can stay relevant and how you can keep a business that might fundamentally be oats and flour, but keep it relevant in today's times. And part of that is the various ways that we distribute our product, the mix that we have across different channels, so much more than just a natural channel player and really thinking about what it takes to be successful in more of your traditional retailer, what's the right assortment to have there?
And then from a communication mix standpoint, absolutely, just thinking about shopper marketing is just an incredibly dynamic world right now. You've got key retailers that are their own media channels and thinking about how to be successful there and having a mix of what is relevant right now from a traditional media standpoint, but also for a brand like ours, very important to be on the ground as well and in the communities and experience. And so for us, that's the challenge is trying to continue to find that right balance of keeping up with how technology is evolving, how communication is evolving to make our assortment relevant, but also to kind of keep the heart of who we are and making sure that there's still a very visible presence for us within the communities with our brands and with our foods.
What Channels are you using to reach consumers?
Reid Carr: Yeah. Would you be willing to share a little bit more about the channel strategy? What kind of channels are you reaching consumers in right now?
Daniel Barba: Yeah, I think for us, what consumers really know us for is just being a stronger player in the natural channel. We had a direct to consumer business at one point. We've chosen to have much more of a focus on more traditional channels, traditional retail. So that's where you've seen a lot more expansion there. Your Walmarts of the world, your Kroger's of the world, and just really trying to reach out to a much broader audience. So we certainly still cater to that consumer that knows us for ingredients that they're pantry staples for them.
And what we see as a bigger opportunity is reaching out to consumers who may not have as much time, they're looking for that hack, they're looking for that special ingredient that's going to make their meals just go to the next level, or consumers that want healthier foods but just don't have the time or that passion to actually be over a stove top and create meals. And so they want solutions that are a little bit more easy, a little bit more turnkey. And so that alone, that kind of focus helps us to get into much more traditional channels, looking at club, looking at e-commerce where we've had a great deal of success and being able to cater to a lot this broader audience.
And along with that comes just products that go part and parcel with that, make an easier solutions that are healthier. Some of our instant oatmeals, we're coming out with a new overnight protein oat product that I'm super excited about that is just, it's an easier solution, something that consumers can have ready for them in the morning. And that's something that opens up the door for us to be in greater channels as well. So for us, it it's continuing to find ways to grow beyond where our roots are and expand and be much more of a national presence as a brand.
Have you had any surprising successes?
Reid Carr: So when you dropped into Bob's Red Mill in 2024, having been at all the other things we talked about, was there anything then at a channel level, consumer sentiment level that really surprised you as you kind of looked at, here's the composition, here are our audiences. I mean, I have to think for one, maybe the passion of the consumers that were there. I mean, not to say that consumers didn't have a passion for other brands that you'd worked on before, but is there anything else that stood out to you that was like, wow, I really got lightning in a bottle here?
Daniel Barba: Yeah, I mean, the first thing is we've got quite a portfolio of products. And for some, especially in other brands that I've worked on, your instinct is, alright, I've got to focus this. I need to really streamline what we do at the heart of who we are. That's part of the special sauce is we've got an egg replacer that may not get a ton of attention, but boy, the prices of eggs went up. Wow, look at that.
We make popcorn. There's things that you wouldn't expect from Bob's red Mill, and that's part of the charm of the brand. But what I realized very quickly was just how impactful these products are. And that's what I love about getting out there and talking to real people in stores or at our trade shows when I hear stories about how, Hey, I've got someone in my family with who's a celiac or who's diabetic, and I started eating your product and it's really made a difference in our lives. I'm like, that is amazing. I've worked on brands where Disney or Coca-Cola, where there's a bit of lifting response that I typically get. The memories come with that, but this is the first time in a while I've worked on a brand where it really has a real impact on people. And you take that to heart. I take that seriously on a day-to-day basis around what this brand is capable of doing and why it's so special for me to be here and continue to lead the marketing around and the product development around what this means to so many in the community.
What's Next for Bob's Red Mill?
Reid Carr: That's beautiful. So what is next for Bob's Red Mill? I mean, are there any big shifts or opportunities that you're particularly excited about?
Daniel Barba: There's always something new, especially when you're leading innovation. There's always something new. And I think for us, it's continue just to find ways to reach out to that broader audience, to find easier solutions for consumers to eat healthy foods, to do it in a way that they don't feel like they're compromising as much. And that's what I love about our products. Like when you eat our brownies or cornbread, it tastes like brownies. It tastes like cornbread because it is. And it's just, the difference is when you turn around the packet, the package and you see short ingredient lists, you see ingredients that you could recognize, trying to have more of that.
And also just trying to find more ways to create meals that are homemade solutions that make it easier for our consumers and ultimately bring people together for us. That's secret sauce for us, is just finding more ways to bring people in our communities together with our foods.
Reid Carr: Yeah. Well, and what's interesting about it too is I think you think of innovation and we think technology a lot of times, and I think you guys were named one of the most innovative companies in the country recently. And I mean to take what the history we just talked about here and the short ingredient list and all that to then consider such an innovator. I mean the whole team has to be so incredibly proud.
Daniel Barba: Yeah, we were really proud of that. We were recognized by Fast Company and it was, I think we were number two on the list for North America, and that was a spot that Amazon held, I think the previous year. And when you think about what we do, it seems so simple, but it's really hard to actually come up with products that people are going to enjoy that taste like what they expect, but that they feel good about that. They're proud of that they understand what's going in their bodies. That's hard. That's really hard. And we take a ton of pride in that.
That's something that in our kitchen, in our development, as we think about what we would want that is, and ultimately sometimes that's where some of the best ideas come, it's just recipes from some of our internal employee owners. In fact, we were coming out with a product shortly, it's a coffee cake product that was the secret recipe for one of our food developers, and we had to pry away from her, but she was very proud of it when she decided to on that and work on it together with us. It was just something that we took a lot of pride in, and that's part of the fun part of the magic of what we do.
Whats your go-to Bob's Red Mill Product?
Reid Carr: That's amazing. Well, Bob's Red Mill is definitely part of my mornings. Most morning. I've got my three go-to granolas there, the lemon blueberry, the peanut butter and the maple with different combinations of yogurt is pretty endless in terms of opportunity, and I always feel good about it. What's your favorite? What's your go-to?
Daniel Barba: There's so many. I am very proud to say that. I would say our brownie mix is one of those just I'm so proud of because it just tastes amazing and it makes me feel like a hero because it's so easy. But when I put it out there for friends and family, they're like, wow, this is awesome. Good job. You're such a good baker. I'm like, the mix did a lot of the hard work. I'm really proud of that. So that's probably my latest favorite.
But I think when it comes down to it, our old fashioned rolled outs is just a staple. Had that this morning as well. Just something that is so simple, but it's a blank canvas you can do so much with, and it just gets you off to a great start. So it gives me so much pride to just go into my pantry, grab one of my products, and know that it's not just something that I sell, it's something that I take a lot of pride in. I'm a consumer and something that I absolutely love on almost a daily basis.
Reid Carr: Oh, that's amazing. Well, it has been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you for all the insights you provide our listeners, and look forward to catching up with you again later and seeing all the wonderful new innovations you have coming out.
Daniel Barba: I really appreciate it. Thank you so much, Reid. Take care.
Reid Carr: Be sure to check out show notes from this episode and more at reddoor.biz/learn. And as always, subscribe to the Marketing Remix and leave us a review on Apple Podcast.