Taking Tiger Brands from zero to hero 

Tiger Brands has completed its turnaround, with the business being successfully rejuvenated and streamlined by the experienced Tjaart Kruger. 

South Africa’s largest food producer now has a set of new challenges, including how to grow in a stagnant economy and how to avoid creating the complexity that got it into the position it was in before Kruger. 

Tiger Brands has always had an enviable stable of brands, with it combining Jungle, All Gold, Koo, Energade, and Maynards under one umbrella. 

However, strategic missteps from expanding into Africa to a bakery price-fixing scandal had cut the Tiger down to size. 

Kruger told Daily Investor that the biggest challenge he faced when taking the top job on 1 November 2023 was getting people at the company to believe in the business again.

“I think it was to convince people internally and externally that we can do it. I think Tiger internally was a bit punch drunk, and people were really scared,” Kruger said following the company’s 2026 interim results. 

“The safest way to stay out of trouble is to do little which impacted the business. Externally, people doubted whether we could implement our strategy.” 

Kruger explained that what he has done at Tiger Brands with his team is not rocket science, but it is difficult to implement. 

“It is not difficult intellectually to understand. Some of the stuff is tough in terms of people, but the more honest and quicker you are, the better it is,” Kruger said. 

“People understand if you restructure and you retrench people. They understand that. You must just be honest.” 

One of the major changes Kruger implemented was a federated management model, which merged two layers of management and pushed managing directors closer to the factory floor.

This enables much faster decision-making with regard to how a business unit responds to external shocks or improves its operations. 

Kruger explained that when he came in as CEO, on his third day, there was a capex meeting with over 20 people attending in person and over 100 online. 

Every month, all capex decisions at Tiger Brands would come to this forum, from decisions about a cooler at a bakery in Secunda to canning equipment at Koo. 

“I listened for about five minutes and then asked what the purpose of the meeting was. Two hundred people. How many hours of time is being wasted there?” Kruger asked. 

Kruger said much of the capex would be thrown out during the meeting anyway, as it was the safe thing to do to avoid scrutiny from superiors. 

This left Tiger Brands stagnant while the market changed around it, resulting in it losing market share and volume growth flatlining. 

Rebuilding the Tiger culture 

Kruger began the turnaround by tackling the inefficiency at Tiger Brands, by decentralising decision making, moving head office, and overhauling the company’s identity. 

“You have to do it there and then. You start the culture in those meetings by asking why we do things the way we do and how can we make it better,” Kruger said. 

“We spoke a lot about stranded costs for example. The one day, I just got irritated and banned the word. We are not allowed to use stranded costs and now we spend no time talking about them.” 

Kruger also instituted systemic changes, such as raising the value of capex managing directors could sign off on from R5 million to R200 million.

This enables decisions to be made as close to the factory floor as possible, rather than be raised through the chain for him to make.

Kruger also embodies the “new Tiger”. He is ferociously busy, walking around the company’s factories and asking questions about how things are done. 

This is exactly what he wants his managing directors to be like, constantly asking how things can be improved or how the company can innovate to increase efficiency. 

Kruger said he travels to Cape Town in his safety shoes with no spares, because he does not intend to spend time in the office. He wants to be on the factory floor. 

“You have to be yourself. You have to be authentic and lead from the front. I spent my life in the trade and in the factories. I get irritated if I have to sit in my office for two days,” Kruger said.

“You must also be visible. You must be there and do the right things. You must help the managing directors learn. You must reward performance and deal with poor performance.” 

The key is being decisive, with Kruger saying that the fastest way to learn is to make mistakes and course correct. Without any action, there are no mistakes to learn from.

“It is just changing that culture. We are not here to sit in the head office and have arguments about working from home. Changing those little things builds a new culture,” Kruger said.

Kruger has placed a lot of trust in his managing directors, who are now directly responsible for the performance of their business units. 

This has worked wonders, with Tiger Brands’ efficiency surging in its latest set of interim results. Its return on equity jumped to 26.3% from 16.3% a year earlier and return on invested capital rose to 24.9%. 

Shareholders are reaping the rewards, with Tiger Brands returning R9.2 billion to shareholders in the form of buybacks and special dividends since the 2024 financial year.