For BBU’s Ramon Rivera, constant learning is the secret to success

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For BBU’s Ramon Rivera, constant learning is the secret to success

11 Sep 2023

Joanie Spencer

Since 2008, Joanie Spencer has covered the retail and wholesale sides of the baking industry.
Serving associations such as the American Society of Baking (ASB) and BEMA, Joanie is also in demand as an industry presenter on bakery operations and trends. She holds a bachelor’s degree in communication from Rockhurst University and a master’s degree in journalism from the University of Missouri.

When she’s not running or playing soccer, Joanie spends her time with her husband and 11-year-old son.

HORSHAM, PA — If you ask Ramon Rivera about the last book he read, you might not get a straight answer. He reads for habit, not hobby, with as many as six books open at any given time. It’s a mark of an insatiable curiosity — about business, innovation and how the world works — that has led him on a journey spanning four decades in an industry he didn’t expect to join.

The timeline of his career is a classic tale of the baking industry’s history makers. In bakery manufacturing, leaders are rarely born; they start on the production line and work their way up. That’s exactly how Rivera became senior VP of operations for Horsham, PA-based Bimbo Bakeries USA (BBU), the North American business unit of Mexico City-based Grupo Bimbo, the world’s largest commercial baking company.

“It’s been a long journey,” said Rivera, who has been with Grupo Bimbo for 42 years, 13 of which he’s spent in the US with BBU.

That longevity stems from a few key principles that include setting purpose, constantly learning and loving the craft.

When Rivera steps into a new situation, he believes it’s incumbent upon him to be the learner. That has been formative for not only his professional development but also his achievements in his company and the industry.

Formally trained in chemical engineering, Rivera spent the first few months of his career learning how to become a baker. In 1981, Grupo Bimbo was not yet the global powerhouse it is today. Although the company was already growing at a rapid rate, its operations were focused in Mexico, and there were not many chemical engineers on staff.

Baking was a totally new world to Rivera, and as Grupo Bimbo was opening one to two plants a year at the time, the learning curve was short. But for Rivera, it was a worthy challenge.

“I came as a trainee in manufacturing as part of a plan to grow people for potential plant openings,” he said. “I quickly learned everything a baker should know on a production line. I had to cover all positions, and that started by learning the basics.”

“I had to learn about categories, competitors, customers, consumers and about the cultural differences among regions in the US. There was a lot to learn, but I enjoy that.”
Ramon Rivera | VP of operations |
Bimbo Bakeries USA

Over the next few decades, as he grew in his role at Grupo Bimbo — and the company expanded globally — Rivera took on challenges such as developing and benchmarking best practices for operations in Mexico, based on American and European principles. The work taught him a great deal about immersion into new cultures and how to apply different practices into a standardized process.

Developing expertise in navigating cultural differences has been foundational for Rivera, most notably when he entered the realm of BBU in 2010, when the business unit was on the brink of quadrupling through acquisitions including George Weston Ltd. and Sara Lee.

“There were big differences, and I had to learn a lot,” Rivera said. “Not only culturally but also in the way the business of baking is conducted; it’s very different in the US and in Mexico. I had to learn about categories, competitors, customers, consumers and about the cultural differences among regions in the US. There was a lot to learn, but I enjoy that.”

Through collaboration and mentorship from peers such as Gary Prince, Fred Penny and Tony Gavin — then George Weston president, BBU president and BBU executive VP, respectively — Rivera led the integration of people, assets, systems and cultures into a cohesive BBU system, all while keeping product moving.

“With these types of integrations, the one thing we cannot do is disrupt the market,” Rivera said. “We have to keep serving customers without disruption.”

The two key factors in seamlessly executing large-scale integration without disruption, according to Rivera, are keeping the team focused on serving customers and consumers and keeping the people safe.

“If you can successfully combine those two things simultaneously,” he said, “the execution will be close to perfect.”

This story has been adapted from the August | Q3 2023 issue of Commercial Baking. Read the full story in the digital edition here.

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