Hillshire Brands CEO Sean Connolly Looks To Marketing, Innovation

Hillshire Brands CEO Sean Connolly is working to foster a new culture, one that he hopes will help set the Chicago-based concern apart as North America's most innovative meat-centric company.

Building on a stable of brands that includes Jimmy Dean sausages, Ball Park hot dogs and Hillshire Farms lunch meats, Connolly is aiming to pump out more new products, and bolster them with increased marketing and advertising.

His near-term efforts will be closely watched as Hillshire is aiming to build a bigger business in frozen breakfast: everything from breakfast bowls, quesadillas and burritos, to egg sandwiches that can be quickly heated in a microwave and eaten at a kitchen table, desk or even in the car.

But to build the business, Connolly will be taking on the likes of McDonald's, with its ubiquitous Egg McMuffins, as well as the typical consumer's habit of making his or her own breakfast sandwiches.

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