Steve Venenga

Steve Venenga is the vice president of marketing for Grocery Products for Hormel Foods in Austin, Minn. Hormel Foods is a global branded food company with over $9 billion in annual revenues across 75 countries worldwide. Its brands include SKIPPY^®, SPAM^®, Hormel^® Natural Choice^®, Applegate^®, Justin’s^®, Columbus^®, Wholly^® Guacamole, Hormel^® Black Label^® and more than 30 other beloved brands. The company is a member of the S&P 500 Index and the S&P 500 Dividend Aristocrats, was named one of “The 100 Best Corporate Citizens” by Corporate Responsibility Magazine for 12 years in a row, and has received numerous other awards and accolades for its corporate responsibility and community service efforts.

In his role, Venenga is responsible for managing all brand-building marketing activities, including the associated marketing budget and new product development activities. He also manages the profit-and-loss statement of the Grocery Products division and develops a staff of marketing product managers. He assumed his current role in 2016.

Venenga joined the company in 1996 when he joined Jennie-O Turkey Store as a product marketing manager. He subsequently held several marketing positions within the company. With more than 20 years of combined experience in food-product marketing at both Hormel Foods and Jennie-O Turkey Store, Venenga was involved with the brand integration of the Jennie-O Turkey Store^® brand and a number of retail product launches, including Jennie-O Turkey Store^®Oven Ready™ turkeys and Jennie-O Turkey Store^® turkey burgers. In 2011, Venenga was named vice president of meat products marketing, where he successfully led the segment to achieve strong growth for brands such as Hormel^® Black Label^® bacon, Hormel^® Natural Choice^® meats and Hormel^® pepperoni, and oversaw the successful launch of Hormel^® REV^® wraps.

Venenga was the founding chairman of the company’s Diversity and Inclusion Council and is a member of the board of directors for Jennie-O Turkey Store and MegaMex Foods, Inc.

He earned a master’s degree in business administration in marketing and finance from the University of Iowa (Iowa City, Iowa) after graduating from Simpson College (Indianola, Iowa) with a bachelor’s degree in management and economics.

He and his wife, Kimber, enjoy spending time with their two children.