Baking & Snack - February 2006 - 42

Flowers enlisted the HR teams at the Baton Rouge
and Lafayette, LA, bakeries. The company set up a call
list, created a Web site and ran public service announcements, trying to reach its New Orleans associates.
"After three weeks, we had located all our employees
and independent distributors," Mr. Scott reported. "They
were spread out all over the country."
"We made contact with everybody!" Mr. Embry said.
"It is very good to be able to say everyone was safe."
Although in temporary exile at Baton Rouge, the New
Orleans staff still had plenty to do. "We ran the New Orleans business activities from Baton Rouge," Mr. Embry
said. "Many of the staff were able to reach Baton Rouge,
and several people from our corporate office at Thomasville also joined the effort. It was important for us to
'huddle up' quickly to keep
the business going."
REPORTING NUMBERS. Financial markets felt Katrina's
economic impact, too. As a publicly traded company,
Flowers Foods moved quickly to reassure its shareholders, the financial community and other stakeholders
about its ability to continue service to its market. The
New Orleans "Bunny Bread" plant, a facility that opened
in 1969 and operated one bread line, was a vital link in
Flowers' regional supply network. Now it and 10 of the
24 warehouses it supplied were knocked out of service.
Two days after the storm, the company was able to report publicly that other facilities in its system now supplied the region previously served by the New Orleans
plant. It announced it would restart a shuttered bakery at
44 / BAKING & SNACK / February 2006

ᮡ Since December, the New Orleans plant has been busy baking bread and
filling orders helping its market in the Central Gulf Coast region recover.
DONN YOUNG PHOTOGRAPHY

Houston to compensate for that lost capacity. The company noted that it carried insurance covering property
and business interruption losses.
"In our public discussions about Katrina and New Orleans, we included details on the scope of damage, the
costs incurred to the best of our knowledge, the effect on
our workforce and our business plan for continuing to
operate," explained Marta Turner, senior vice-president/
corporate relations, Flowers Foods.
In late September, a month after the storm, the executive team met with financial analysts in New York, NY,
and Boston, MA. At that time, Flowers reported it already
had 20 of its warehouses
back in service.
Also in late September, Flowers regained access to the New Orleans bakery and started its cleanup. Damage, though prevalent, proved to be less severe than expected. In its
Feb. 2 announcement of 2005 fiscal results, Flowers Foods
noted that hurricane losses for the year were $7.5 million.
HUMANITARIAN RELIEF. As a business, Flowers Foods
worked hard in the post-Katrina period to keep its Central Gulf States customers; however, its managers looked
beyond mere competitive reasons to contribute strongly to
humanitarian needs and relief efforts. Not only were its customers and consumers hurting, so were its own people.
"In the days and weeks following the storm, we worked

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