Microsoft 365 Copilot empowers Newman's Own to reduce costs and further it’s mission to nourish children

Newman’s Own is in the highly competitive food industry, from making sauces to snacks, drinks to dog treats – they are continuing actor Paul Newman’s commitment to “give it all away” with giving 100% of the company profits funding Newman’s Own Foundation to support its mission to nourish and transform children’s lives who face adversity. The company is seeking new ways to improve employee productivity and reduce costs. Microsoft 365 Copilot is a critical part of how they run a lean, efficient organization to maximize their profits. “We need to keep growing, operating efficiently and staying relevant to consumers and their needs,” David Best, President and CEO says, “Having greater insight into what consumers want today and tomorrow is crucial to our success.”

How Newman’s Own competes in a crowded market

Copilot is an integral part of Newman’s Own’s daily operations; many employees use it every day including Best. He explains how important it is to use technology to their advantage. “Using Copilot and AI to its fullest potential so we can be smarter than our competition is a key piece of our recipe for success,” states Best. Quickly the organization is seeing a tremendous impact with increases in creativity, and improvements in effectiveness and efficiency – driving their business forward. 

For the marketing team, they have been able to triple the number of campaigns they run in a month and rely on Copilot to stir up their creativity. “Before a brief might take 3 hours to complete. With Copilot, I can have an outline in 30 minutes to an hour as a starting point and I can stay focused on key messages and KPIs,” says Riley McCarthy, Social Media Manager. With social trends that can change in a moment, she uses Copilot to help put the Newman’s Own spin on things. “I can do several campaigns in a month now because I have more time to come up with more ideas which matters because we are getting more eyeballs on us,” states McCarthy. 

Copilot is an invaluable coworker

Copilot is seen as an additional coworker on the team. For McCarthy, she shares how Copilot helps her flesh out ideas and helps her get past a creative block – like a colleague she would brainstorm with to build on ideas. 

Jennifer Millones, Chief Legal Officer, reinforces how valuable Copilot is by saying, “Copilot is my junior associate. I use it to handle legal questions and gather citations, which accelerates my ability to support the company.” It also helps her by cutting unnecessary legalese out of contract templates, making them easier to use. She shares how Copilot helps her craft company-wide emails that are more approachable with less ”lawyer language” that may be intimidating. 

The Logistics and Transportation team receives many industry publications every day. Sherry Linson, Director, states, “I have Copilot summarize each one, it only takes 30 minutes when it used to take me all morning. With these summaries, I quickly discover ways to keep costs down and introduce new initiatives.” Linson adds, “It’s my information database. My creativity platform. A jumping point. All at my fingertips.” 

As a company, finding new ways to be more productive with limited resources is part of who they are because they know it matters to their bottom line. Bruce Wallace, Chief People Officer, says “Giving our people the best possible tools is important so they can be successful because that drives everything we do, supporting our ability to transform children’s lives and leads to everyone feeling a sense of fulfillment.”

McCarthy shared how Copilot is making a difference with her Dyslexia. “I have confidence whatever I’m writing – whether to an executive or posts on social media – it will be spelled correctly with the proper grammar using Copilot.”

Copilot definitely saves Newman’s Own both time and money. 

Best reinforces how Copilot is a key part of their money-saving plans because the team is gaining time and productivity efficiencies. For Newman’s Own, Copilot is an integral part of how they’ve been able to give even more to help children in need.  He finishes with, “Nothing could be better than helping more kids, and that’s what Copilot allows us to do.” 

Newman’s Own doesn’t have the scale of some of their competitors, so it’s essential for employees to be able to work smarter, not harder. Best believes Copilot will continue to take them to the next level of growth and have greater impact towards their mission.