A Day in the Life Hormel
Welcome to our "A Day in the Life" series, where we spotlight the professionals managing excess inventory in the CPG industry. In this installment, we caught up with Jim Jordan, Regional Sales Manager at Hormel Foods, and his colleague Maria Carranza, Sales Solution Specialist at Hormel Foods.
About
Hormel Foods is a global branded food company founded in 1891 and headquartered in Austin, Minnesota. With more than 19,000 employees and roughly $12 billion in annual revenue, the company brings iconic brands like SPAM®, Planters®, Skippy®, and Applegate® to tables in more than 80 countries.
Industry
Food & Beverage / Consumer Packaged Goods (Meat & Protein)
Headquarters
Austin, Minnesota, USA
Every Week is a New Puzzle: The Job in a Nutshell
Jim Jordan’s job is simple on paper but complex in execution: get excess inventory sold and out of the warehouse by Friday. “It’s like Forrest Gump’s box of chocolates,” Jim says. “Every Monday, I open that box, and I don’t know what I’m going to get—sometimes caramel nuggets, sometimes the creams nobody wants.”
It’s a high-pressure role, especially when you consider the stakes. Letting inventory sit in the warehouse isn’t an option. “The warehouse teams don’t want to keep moving it around,” Jim explains. “They have to separate it from regular orders and constantly adjust to keep things organized. Getting it sold saves everyone time, space, and headaches.”
The Art of Negotiation
Before Spoiler Alert, Jim’s job was all about speed—which left little room for negotiation. “It became more about getting it done fast than getting the best results,” he explains. The acquisition of the PLANTERS® branded business only added to the workload, underscoring the need for a more efficient system.
With Spoiler Alert, the game has changed. “Now, it’s a lot easier to decide on building trucks and finding the right price,” Jim says. The platform not only provides more clarity but also empowers him to make smarter decisions—ones that feel less like a compromise and more like a win.
From Panic to Planning
Jim has gotten so good at managing excess inventory that brand managers are starting to loop him in earlier when they see potential surpluses. Recently, a manager reached out about a limited-time holiday product with overestimated demand. “I haven’t sold it yet,” Jim says. “But I have more buyers I can work with now, and by listing it earlier, I’m able to recover more.”
Modernizing a manual, PDF-and-fax process for selling excess inventory before it slows down the warehouse.
Managing distressed inventory at Hormel used to be, in Jim Jordan’s words, “a long, arduous process.” The old workflow relied on PDFs, pencils, and manual effort — printing bids, comparing them by hand, and piecing together a master list, often working until 9 PM to make sense of it all.
Replacing manual bid comparisons with Spoiler Alert’s auto-award and negotiation tools.
With Spoiler Alert, Jim no longer scrambles to compare bids by hand. “The auto-award feature alone saves me hours every week,” he says. The platform also gives him more clarity when building trucks and setting price, turning negotiations that used to be all about speed into decisions that feel like a win.
Jim’s Advice
Jim’s advice for embracing new technology is simple: “Work with it. It’s going to make your life easier.” He highlights Hormel’s broader shift toward modernization, including AI-powered bots for order processing, which reduce errors and free up time for strategic work.
Conclusion
Jim Jordan’s story is a testament to the resilience, adaptability, and creativity required in the CPG industry. From tackling the unexpected to embracing the tools that make it all possible, he and Maria embody the dedication and innovation that drive success in managing excess inventory.
Jim Jordan
Regional Sales Manager, Hormel Foods
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