Rich Products - Food Service Marketing

Spring 2017

Duties

My main duties include: using data sorting software to run market reports, analyzing data and compiling it into detailed, yet readable, decks (or PowerPoints), assisting in competitive product cuttings, and designing email campaigns based on managers’ requests.

And of course, I still have some “internly” duties such as: bringing shipments to the marketing freezer, documenting protocepts (or product samples) and delivering them to the designated marketers, and sometimes running errands outside of the office (this only happened a few times). But don’t worry, this isn’t an internship where you’ll be fetching coffees and sorting papers.

Skills learned/equipment mastered

First, I’ll start with the equipment. Food product marketing involves a clear understanding of the product and its attributes. To attain this, my team has to do research in the kitchen so I had to learn how to use the different pizza ovens (I am on the pizza and flatbread team) and how to prep our product. Other than the equipment in the kitchen, I wouldn’t exactly label anything else I learned as “equipment” (aside from, perhaps, the printer/copy/fax machine).

I gained a great understanding of two computer programs, which I will not disclose their names in order to keep them confidential. The first provides data about our products – and this is all the information about the products – which needs to be evaluated for changes to update our full-line brochure. The second, very complex program encompasses all of the market data for the food industry so needs to be manually filtered to tailor the report to your needs. I use this program to identify how well our products are selling in particular market segments and to unearth any new product opportunities in the market.

Finally, I’m pretty much an expert in Microsoft Outlook. Outlook is used by many different businesses for email, scheduling meetings/booking conference rooms, and finding company contacts. Using Outlook is a great way to organize your schedule and interact with others – it even inspired me to use the calendar feature in Gmail to better organize my time outside of work, and send meeting invites to others.

Benefits and Drawbacks

If you’re looking for a more hands-on communications internship (video editing, reporting, etc.), this is not for you. This position is focused on marketing and contains some advertising. Rich’s is a supplier and not a retailer, so you are not marketing to the end user, but to other businesses. I was able to work on a few email ad campaigns during the course of the semester, but these were drafts that were then outsourced to another company.

Rich Products has a lot of perks to working there. They have nice hours all year round (8:30am – 5pm, Monday through Friday), and even have summer hours and holiday hours at Christmastime (8am – 5pm, Monday through Thursday, half-day Fridays). And I will say, getting to sample (and sometimes take home) different foods nearly every week is a huge plus!

I truly learned a lot at this internship, even after just one week! I feel confident building market reports, am even more knowledgeable of Excel, and know a lot more about product marketing in general. It was also nice to have my manager/mentor who I met with every week to discuss projects and any questions I had.

For drawbacks, there aren’t many. Of course, the more “internly” tasks I mentioned earlier come to mind, but I expected to have some of those (and well, I am an intern). At one point, it did become overwhelming between my coursework and internship, but I discuss this later and give advice to avoid this.

Future

I can gladly say that I have chosen to extend my internship through the summer to work full-time hours. Rich Products has so many different opportunities – foodservice marketing is just a small, but important, piece of the company. I greatly appreciate the supportive work environment and the recognition Rich’s gives its employees. It is still a family run company, and I think it really shows in the culture. I definitely see myself here in the future, and hope to get a position in their Manager in Training program (MIT) when I get my MBA.

Advice

If you take on this internship, be prepared to work hard (to learn a lot) and have a lot of independence with your schedule. For my last internship (at GEICO), my entire schedule was pretty much mapped out for the summer session. At Rich’s, I am assigned projects and am responsible for budgeting my time accordingly to meet deadlines and schedule any needed meetings with the marketing managers.

Also, consider taking a lighter course load with this internship. I started the internship working nearly 30 hours per week (this isn’t the case for every internship here – most of them are more like 20 hours/week). At first, it was fine, but as the semester neared its end, it got to the point where I was struggling to get my schoolwork done (and I’m an “A” student). Luckily, my manager was completely fine with me dropping one of my half-days to focus more on schoolwork for the last month of the semester (and I’m sure he would have allowed this earlier if I spoke to him sooner). And another note – consider the commute time for this internship. In the beginning, I worked four half-days and one full-day. Between class and work, I was commuting seven hours during the work/school week. I think the best arrangement for a school/work balance with this internship would be to work either three full-days, or two-full days and one half-day.

Characteristics you should have coming into this internship:

• Strong knowledge of Excel - I use this every day

• Ability to run market reports, sort, and analyze data (but you will learn most of this at Rich’s)

• Strong communication skills and a willingness to ask questions

• Quick learner (Rich’s is a HUGE company with many products and systems)

• Strong organization skills

• Know your limits – you will be receiving tasks from multiple marketers, so don’t make promises for unrealistic deadlines (I learned this the hard way). The team is very understanding if you let them know you already have a lot on your plate.

Overall, I definitely recommend interning at this company!