Evans Food

In April 2014, Hector Guerra (GMP 16) was discussing his company's dilemma with his living group of the General Management Program (GMP) at the Harvard Business School. Guerra was Vice President of Operations at Evans Food, a $100 million company, which produced pork rinds—salty snacks made out of pork skin—and sold at some of the largest US retailers such as HEB, Meijer, ALDI and Wal-Mart. In the last few years, the cost of pork skin had increased dramatically but Evans Food's selling price to its customers had not kept pace with the increase in raw material costs. The company was losing money on some of the largest accounts but it seemed difficult, if not impossible, to seek price increase from multibillion-dollar retailers.