A business development concept for Jake Gretz

The next chapter in product development

From formula
to shelf.

You help companies create what goes inside the package. What if New Horizon could also help them create the brand that takes it to market?

One added capability. Two opportunities for growth: stronger New Horizon marketing and an optional new service for the customers you already serve.

Explore the idea ↗Why now ↓
THE GOOD IS IN THE DETAILS
FIELD
NOTE™
✳
ORGANIC
VEGETABLE STOCK
SLOW BUILT. DEEPLY GOOD.
ROASTED
TOMATO
BASETHE START OF SOMETHING GOOD
GOOD ROOTgood
things
grow.REAL-INGREDIENT
CHICKEN BROTH
CONCEPTUAL PACKAGING ONLY — NOT EXISTING NEW HORIZON BRANDS OR CLIENT WORK
SCROLL TO EXPLORE
01 / THE MOMENT

Capacity is growing.
Opportunity can grow with it.

New Horizon has already built expertise in clean-label formulations and manufacturing. Its facility expansion makes this an interesting time to think about the commercial capabilities surrounding that expertise—not just the production line itself.

$14.5Mannounced facility project investment1
30,000 SFplanned new production facility1
>95%of sales to out-of-state customers, per state filing2
The strategic question

As more products move through New Horizon's pipeline, what else could move with them?

New Horizon works with food brands, private-label customers, foodservice operators and other manufacturers. Some already have established branding partners. Others may benefit from help positioning, presenting and packaging a new product.

The opportunity is not to become an advertising agency. It's to add a selective, production-aware creative service where customers actually need it.

02 / THE OPPORTUNITY

Complete the journey.
Not just the recipe.

Today, New Horizon's value proposition extends from ingredient expertise to scalable manufacturing. The proposed addition would support the market-facing work surrounding select customer product launches.

01

Formulate

Flavor, clean-label ingredients, recipes, and product development.

EXISTING STRENGTH
02

Manufacture

Production, QA, traceability, packaging formats, and scale.

EXISTING STRENGTH
03

Build the brand

Positioning, identity, packaging design, and production-ready creative.

PROPOSED SERVICE
04

Support the launch

Sales presentations, photography direction, product pages, and launch toolkits.

PROPOSED SERVICE
A

Strengthen New Horizon

A clearer corporate story, an elevated website experience, sales-ready credentials, customer case studies and product communications as manufacturing capacity expands.

B

Serve New Horizon's customers

Optional, fee-based brand and packaging development for early-stage and established customers who have a genuine gap between formulation and market readiness.

03 / THE POSSIBILITY

What could this
look like?

Different markets. Different products. One coordinated approach to creating the next brand.

ILLUSTRATIVE CONCEPTS — NOT NEW HORIZON CLIENTS OR APPROVED PRODUCTS
A LAUNCH-READY IDENTITY
DAYMARKslow
made.TOMATO & HERB
SOUP BASE
01 Naming, identity, label design
A BRAND BUILT TO EXPAND
FIELDNOTE GOODSGOOD
STARTS
HERE.CHICKEN BONE BROTH
02 SKU system and packaging family
A STORY READY FOR BUYERS
GOOD ROOT
Good food
begins here.

THE PRODUCT STORY / THE OPPORTUNITY / THE PROOF

03 Retail & sales launch materials

Real-world packaging would be coordinated with a customer's co-packer, printer, and qualified regulatory reviewers. New Horizon would determine which parts of this offer fit its actual customer base.

04 / THE BUSINESS CASE

Not just better creative.
A measurable business idea.

A new position needs to help pay for itself. The possible contribution comes from both fee-based creative work and manufacturing relationships that the integrated service could help acquire or retain.

REVENUE STREAM 01

Creative services

Scoped projects for naming, visual identity, packaging graphics and launch materials—with customer approval and clear margins.

REVENUE STREAM 02

Manufacturing growth

Incremental product-development and production business attributable to better client experience or improved sales conversion.

OPERATIONAL RETURN

New Horizon's brand

Stronger corporate positioning and better sales tools; potentially valuable, but not counted as guaranteed ROI below.

INTERACTIVE ASSUMPTION MODEL

What would make it work?

Change the inputs to test the level of demand needed. These are illustrations only, not a company forecast or established market pricing.

ANNUAL MODEL / ILLUSTRATIVE
Creative contribution$78,000
Manufacturing contribution$90,000
Combined contribution$168,000
Less fully loaded role cost−$160,000
Illustrative contribution after role cost+$8,000
Positive in this scenario; not a projection.

Before other overhead, startup expenses, tax, and any unattributed costs. Incremental manufacturing revenue must be genuinely attributable to the initiative; do not count revenue already expected without it.

✳

The objective is not to sell enough packaging projects to fill a designer's calendar. It's to determine whether creative support can improve manufacturing customer acquisition, retention and total account value.

THE ADVANTAGE OF DEDICATED LEADERSHIP

A brand needs more than good projects.
It needs consistent ownership.

A PERSPECTIVE FROM BOTH SIDES

Having worked on the agency side, I understand the value excellent outside partners bring. I also know the limits of a project-by-project relationship. A senior creative leader working inside New Horizon would bring something different: a continuous understanding of its products, customers, sales priorities and opportunities—every day, not just when the next brief arrives.

The goal is not simply to produce more creative. It's to make every creative decision work harder for the business.

01 / CONTINUITY

Knowledge that compounds

Deep product and customer understanding stays inside the company, connecting individual projects to a coherent brand over time.

02 / ACCOUNTABILITY

One owner, shared goals

Creative decisions stay close to product development, sales and leadership—with success measured by business outcomes, not just finished deliverables.

03 / ADDED VALUE

Two ways to contribute

The same leadership strengthens New Horizon's market presence while building an optional, revenue-generating service for select customers.

This complements, rather than replaces, the right agency and production partners. New Horizon gains an experienced internal leader to direct the work, maintain momentum and call on outside specialists where they add value.

05 / A RESPONSIBLE FIRST STEP

Validate the opportunity.
Then build around what works.

Rather than ask you to commit to a new department on an assumption, I propose starting with a focused commercial assessment and a practical pilot.

FIRST 30 DAYS

Listen and identify

Understand the existing marketing relationship, sales process, customer mix, product-development pipeline, and where projects stall.

DAYS 31–60

Test the offer

Interview a small sample of appropriate customers. Develop 1–2 narrowly scoped packaging/brand projects, with fees and outside-production costs defined.

DAYS 61–90

Measure and decide

Assess demand, profit contribution, customer response, manufacturing opportunity, workload, and the case for a permanent leadership role.

Build on existing partners, rather than replace them.

New Horizon's website credits Mission Marketing for web design. A dedicated brand and product-experience leader could own strategy and customer creative development while existing agency and specialist partners continue to provide complementary execution as appropriate.

06 / THE PERSON TO BUILD IT

Experience that spans
brand and business.

The opportunity calls for more than a designer. It calls for someone comfortable connecting a manufacturer's capabilities with what its sales team, customers and markets actually need.

Explore my background ↗
01

Built the brand at Tractor Zoom

Led brand development across marketing, sales, recruiting, product and digital communication—inside a fast-moving agricultural technology business.

02

Food, beverage and packaging experience

Directed packaging systems and product identity work, including Oliver Cider Works' brand experience across flavors, cans and cartons, with broader creative experience involving established food and beverage brands.

03

Creative leadership, not only execution

Thirty-plus years building creative programs, directing teams and helping complex products and organizations tell clear, compelling stories.

RELEVANT FOOD + BEVERAGE EXPERIENCE

I've worked with brands people already know.

My professional creative experience includes work with these recognized food and beverage brands—perspective I would bring to both New Horizon and the customers developing their next products.

  • Kellogg's
  • Conagra Foods
  • Hillshire Farm
  • Louis M. Martini Winery
  • Anheuser-Busch
  • Coca-Cola

Selected brands from prior professional creative work. Names are used to describe experience, not to imply current affiliation or endorsement.

A CONVERSATION WORTH HAVING

You've built the expertise
to make great products.
Let's explore what comes next.

Jake, I'd welcome 20 minutes to understand how New Horizon's product-development business works and whether a creative capability like this could add meaningful value. If the answer is no, we will know quickly. If it's yes, we can build a business case worth acting on.

Clint HansenBRAND + CREATIVE LEADERresume.clinthansen.com ↗