Top Women In Store Brands 2023: Anne Sprout
For more than a decade, Store Brands and Women Impacting Storebrand Excellence (WISE) have teamed to honor women across the private label industry who have had and continue to have a major impact in the store brand segment.
From supply chain, to sales, marketing, finance and more, members of the Class of 2023 each play a vital role in moving store brands forward amid new and on-going challenges that include rising prices, capacity issues with manufacturers, and evolving demand from consumers.
The following is the profile of Anne Sprout of TreeHouse Foods, the 2023 Lifetime Achievement honoree.
A Mentor To Many
Overseeing customer service at TreeHouse Foods, one of the leaders in private label manufacturing, Anne Sprout has led a successful career and driven store brand success for the company’s clients.
Throughout her 36 years in the private label industry, she has held a number of roles, including customer service representative, accrual analyst, customer service manager, IT infrastructure manager, IT director, and now senior director of Customer Service. In her current role, she supports customers through the order fulfillment process, ensuring orders are on-time and in full.
In 1987, she started as a customer service representative for Green Bay Food Company, a subsidiary of Dean Foods. At TreeHouse Foods, Sprout has led behind-the-scenes operations including migrating the company’s clients to new operating systems and maintaining high quality customer service. During this time, she led a project to obtain new laptops for the sales team, and trained team members on their use. In the 1990s, Sprout played a key role in getting all customers to order via Electronic Data Interchange (EDI). Today, approximately 95% of TreeHouse customers use the EDI system.
Sprout also spent 10 years as a business leader implementing SAP. This included migrating more than 15 companies to the system and incorporating more than 45 plants and more than 20 distribution centers during her tenure. Other achievements include leading the IT Business Analytics team and helping build TreeHouse’s data foundation, as well as being a key leader in helping merge two customer service teams after a large acquisition, which included setting up a shared service center.
Sprout is credited as having been a mentor throughout her career. When her colleagues interacted with her, they left more knowledgeable of what it takes to win in the competitive private label landscape. She is also credited with contributing to TreeHouse’s success by ensuring the overall goals of the company are supported and achieved through her leadership.
Throughout her career, Sprout mentored countless leaders, supported local groups such as food banks, and participated in company sponsored events in the local community.
