Midlands NAMA chapter members and guests held their March meeting at the ConAgra Foods Headquarters in Omaha, Nebraska. The meeting began with a tour of the ConAgra Foods campus followed by a presentation by John Lindell, brand manager for Healthy Choice.

Lindell gave a general overview of ConAgra’s strategic priorities and then an in-depth look at their frozen foods business, primarily focusing on the Healthy Choice brand. In the past year, Healthy Choice has re-invented itself with a new look and new recipes. Lindell said the brand had been over-extended, so the company reined it in before reinventing. He shared the market segmentation approach for Healthy Choice, their strategies in social media and how they conducted market research in Seattle, where people are least likely to buy frozen meals. Lindell said he still has a lot of faith in TV advertising, where they spend $30M of their $100M advertising budget for the brand.

ConAgra Foods is a Fortune 500 company with 25,000 employees worldwide.  ConAgra Foods brands are found in 97 percent of U.S. households under consumer brand names of Banquet, Chef Boyardee, Healthy Choice, Hunt’s, PAM and Reddi-Wip.

A special thanks to John Lindell for his insight into marketing Healthy Choice as well as Kari Gehling at ConAgra for helping coordinate the meeting.

Former NAMA employee Janet J. Welch 58, passed away April 4, 2010.  Jan worked as a meeting planner at NAMA for 16 years and enjoyed traveling the world with her family. She is survived by her husband, Terence Welch; son, Matthew Welch; mother, Jewel Waid; sister, Kristy Johnston, brother Steven Waid. Fond memories and condolences may be left at www.porterfuneralhome.com.