Ep 87: Doug Renfro / President of Renfro Foods and Salsa Creator Extraordinaire

Renfro Foods is a privately owned, award-winning food producer of salsas, sauces and relishes, including 30 Mrs. Renfro’s products, located in Fort Worth, Texas. 

Founded in 1940, Renfro Foods is owned and managed by the second and third generations of the Renfro family. Its products are sold in the United States, the Caribbean, Canada and the U.K.

As president of Renfro Foods, Doug works closely with his cousins Becky and James to run the company. In particular, Doug focuses on research and development, private label and contract packing, quality assurance, sales and marketing, legal, information technology and a dozen other areas 

Doug and his cousins strive for family harmony in managing the company and don’t make any major decisions without a unanimous vote of support. 

For Doug, one of the benefits of working with family is the ability to be brutally honest with each other and still maintain a civil and professional relationship.  

The team at Renfro Foods pays close attention to flavor trends to identify new salsa flavors. 

QUOTES

“When I got out of college, if I had come to work here I would have been chopping cabbage. The executive positions were filled by my dad and my uncle.” (Doug)

“When I came (to Renfro Foods) I had been in charge of corporate accounting for a billion dollar company. My uncle was still doing pricing on a legal pad with his desk calculator. I said, ‘Here’s a spreadsheet. It’s going to instantaneously recalculate the cost of thousands of items in a millisecond.’ He saw what that did and he said, ‘Can you do that every 90 days from now on?’” (Doug) 

“If you don’t demand as much of your ego to be around, one of the secrets I tell (people) is get somebody without your last name to suggest the same idea you’ve been suggesting that’s been ridiculed and suddenly it’s a great idea.” (Doug)

“If you take business things personally, that screws (family) relationships up.” (Doug) 

“I think we lost money on every jar of Raspberry Chipotle we sold last year. Thankfully we didn’t sell many.” (Doug)

“I want everything on the label to be tasteable but you can’t always afford to do that without losing money,” (Doug) 

TRANSCRIPT

00:01.23

vigorbranding

All right, hey there, Fork Tales listeners and viewers. I am really happy to be joined today by a good friend of mine, Doug Renfro. Doug is president of Renfro Foods. And I had to say it like 25 times because somehow the word foods after Renfro, I mean, foods in Renfro is easy.

 

00:13.93

Doug Renfro

sorry

 

00:15.18

vigorbranding

Renfro Foods, I just struggled. But anyway, ah he is the the the president of Mrs. Renfro’s Salsa. ah Not only are they a family owned company, which always is interesting, but they’re one of the most innovative companies I know. Doug, welcome and thank you very much for joining us and for your time.

 

00:32.73

Doug Renfro

Thanks, happy to be here.

 

00:34.60

vigorbranding

So ah you know I’m going to start off by pointing out i’ve I’ve been very fortunate to know you and to ah have your product. And it’s phenomenal. And I’m not just saying that. ah Case in point, I have three jars behind me that were supposed to be props for this presentation. There w