Big Heart Pet Brands is now part of The J.M. Smucker Co..
Big Heart Pet Brands Reviews
Updated May 15, 2020
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Found 169 of over 177 reviews
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Pros
Cons
- "Maintaining a work/life balance is difficult when management constantly makes it clear that they do what works for them, even when it violates the very standards they put forth." (in 8 reviews)
Pros & Cons are excerpts from user reviews. They are not authored by Glassdoor.
- Former Employee, more than 5 years★★★★★
Pros
Great leadership and teammates here in Pittsburgh.
Cons
Smuckers bought the company unfortunately.
Continue reading - Current Employee★★★★★
Pros
low key and relax atmosphere. a lot of room to educate yourself and grow and learn in the company. almost anyone can be your mentor to you. a lot of promotions available if you are skilled. they have a great career path system. they are a little company with a big heart and even bigger name. they do a lot of charity work. extremely supportive with balancing work and family life. they poor out compliments all the time so you know where you stand all the time. they are really good at showing compassion even when you make a mistake. you don't have to worry if you will loose your job. they will walk you through your mistake and help you learn from it.
Cons
constant changes all the time. you have to be prepared. read the book 'who moved my cheese' before working here. busy-ness comes in cycles. april through october is extremely busy and then it slows down in november. january it tries to pick up but it is still slow. by march, the things you tried to get people to jump on is hitting them in the head and soon they are scrambling to get things done by or before the end of april (end of fiscal year). for me this is difficult to encourage others to stay ahead of the curve because everyone thinks 'we still have time'... when we really do not.
Continue reading - Former Employee, less than 1 year★★★★★
Pros
Competitive pay, good benefits including profit sharing and incentive programs.
Cons
Never enough staff to cover ever increasing production demands. Excessive mandatory overtime make it impossible to have any kind of life outside of work.
Continue reading - Current Employee, more than 5 years★★★★★
Pros
- Major positive cultural shifts are happening since breaking off from Del Monte Foods and becoming pet-focused - Lots of opportunity - pet industry is on fire - Get to work with iconic pet food and treat brands like Milk-Bone, Kibbles 'n Bits, Meow Mix and others - Company is expanding it's premium specialty holdings - most recently with acquisition of Natural Balance - Focus on innovation and trends is steadily increasing - leading to a more creative and less risk-averse environment - internally people think of the company as a $3 billion start up - New values and guiding principles that people take seriously (integrity, courage, action) - Supportive leadership team with impressive brand experience - Great new giving program, including grants for pet organizations and co will match donations to pet orgs by 150% - Downtown SF HQ close to the Ferry Building and with awesome Bay and bridge views - Casual - jeans every day - Most people seem to be truly passionate about pets - If you're the kind of person who wants to compete and win, has initiative and can back it up with smarts, you'll do well
Cons
- CPG thinking can sometimes feel limiting and risk-averse but that's changing - Employees seem to want change faster than the company may be able to deliver - Company tends to have champagne dreams on a beer budget - you need to be creative and scrappy to thrive - Future is a little fuzzy being PE-owned. Great opportunities could very well be ahead but this isn't the place for people who need slow, steady and stable to be happy.
- Current Employee, more than 1 year★★★★★
Pros
Great co-workers - smart and helpful. The office is great - beautiful views, spacious and great location. The brands are also fun to work on - very well-known with lots of brand equity. The President is also incredibly accessible, friendly, and smart. Pay is good, and benefits are great - private gym in the building! Overall, there's also lots of positive change that's being worked on to bring the company and it's culture into this decade. Lots of want and drive for this change across the company - it's moving more slowly than it should, but at least it's moving.
Cons
As mentioned above, change can be slow, this also goes for general process changes and approvals of materials. Too many people at the top want to review items that are just not worth their time. Some control needs to be relinquished some and more ownership needs to be given to Directors/Managers. This will allow for quicker positive change, better innovation and happier employees. Also, culture improvements need to be made quickly - big gripe here. Everyone is nice and its a great office...but need more to get employees to have fun and interact with each other! Especially, when you're competing with the Facebook, Google and all the start-ups! Otherwise, will continue to have high turnover.
Continue reading - Former Employee, more than 5 years★★★★★
Pros
Lots of changes, little communication
Cons
Poor communication to staff and many surprise changes
Continue reading - Former Employee, more than 8 years★★★★★
Pros
Big Heart Pet in Pittsburgh PA was a great place to work. Great culture, friendly coworkers. Good pay & benefits. My management welcomed my ideas and respected my opinion. I had ownership of my region.
Cons
J M Smucker's leadership. Big Heart acquisition was very poorly handled. Most job offers given were just for show. There was no incentive to relocate-many positions offered were at a lower level with lesser benefits. Leadership repeatedly told Pgh employees how "great" the company was going to be in the future even after most were told they were losing their jobs. Big Heart software, processes, & methods proven to be more effective & efficient were disregarded because they were not "the Smucker way" of doing things. Company is highly resistant to change.
Continue reading - Current Employee★★★★★
Pros
-Great location in downtown San Francisco. -Lean company with fewer layers gives individuals more responsibility and autonomy to make key decisions. -Culture is better than most. Employees are friendly. -Respects hard work and results rather than looking busy and working long hours everyday. -Becoming a more marketing driven culture.
Cons
-Lots of turnover at lower level marketing positions. -No clear role definition between marketing analysts, associate marketers and sr. associate marketers. Depending on brand, sr. associates could be doing analyst work and and analysts could be doing sr. associate work. -Knowledge management and transfer is lacking resulting in lots of fire drills and duplicative work. -Short term focus at the expense of long-term brand health.
Continue reading - Current Employee★★★★★
Pros
- Great brands - really, some of the best, especially in the pet food arena - Good location in SF - Potential for greatness (unrealized)
Cons
- By far the most hierarchical company I have ever seen. Directors and up get enormous (and I mean enormous) offices, and everyone else has small cubes. It is incredibly difficult for someone at a lower level to speak to anyone above them other than their direct boss - it's just not done. - Finance, not marketing driven - Little diversity in upper management - Lots of turnover at low levels, but at the same time no room for advancement. I think in the last three years possibly three people have been promoted to director - Little opportunity for individuals to make their mark and if they try they are punished for it
Continue reading - Former Employee★★★★★
Innovative culture with a good blend of east and west coast management styles
RecommendCEO ApprovalBusiness OutlookPros
The company was formed out of the divestiture of the Del Monte brands leaving behind solely the pet food brands. We tagged ourselves a $4 billion start-up and it felt that way as the company sought to innovate its brands, its internal systems and operations.
Cons
It was a short term play guided by the ever present hand of private equity firm that had acquired the business which was executing along a punch list to sell the company to the highest bidder which turned out to be Smucker's - a company that seems to be a fine organization.
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Big Heart Pet Brands Reviews FAQs
Big Heart Pet Brands has an overall rating of 3.2 out of 5, based on over 177 reviews left anonymously by employees. 51% of employees would recommend working at Big Heart Pet Brands to a friend and 32% have a positive outlook for the business. This rating has been stable over the past 12 months.
51% of Big Heart Pet Brands employees would recommend working there to a friend based on Glassdoor reviews. Employees also rated Big Heart Pet Brands 3.3 out of 5 for work life balance, 3.0 for culture and values and 2.7 for career opportunities.
According to reviews on Glassdoor, employees commonly mention the pros of working at Big Heart Pet Brands to be benefits, compensation, coworkers and the cons to be senior leadership, management, career development.
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