At Expana’s Agri-Food Americas event on September 23-24 in Chicago, Illinois, procurement critical thinking and business solution finding will take center stage. Expert insights will be given and many networking opportunities will be enabled for attendees, who are all faced with disruptive trade shifts and global agricultural commodity supply chain woes.
The ambition is for agri-food leaders to unite, discuss, seek expert overviews, and gain some sense of direction and clarity they can ultimately take back home and apply to their procurement strategies.
Ahead of the event, we spoke to Dave McMurray, a CPG/Food industry CPO and veteran procurement professional, who is also a member of Expana’s new Advisory Board created earlier this year*, to outline some of the key discussion points we expect to dive into and analyze closely next month.
McMurray, with over 40 years of experience in procurement and supply chain activities across various industries, joined Kellogg’s Global Procurement team in 2015. His leadership spans all areas of procurement, including direct materials, indirect materials & services, external manufacturing, distribution/logistics, commodities, and finished products (grocery retail). In October 2023, following the split of the Kellogg Company into two separate public entities, McMurray became part of the new Kellanova Company and its Global Procurement Leadership Team. In July 2024, he retired but was brought back shortly thereafter as a part-time contractor to help lead the synergy activation work as Kellanova was to be acquired by Mars Inc. in 2025 for an estimated $30 billion.
[Expana] Mr. McMurray, would you look at today’s procurement challenges and overall trading environment any differently than before?
[Dave McMurray] I’d define the “before” scenario as pre-COVID, when procurement operated in a relatively stable environment. Since 2020–21, however, a series of global events have radically reshaped the traditional supply chain and procurement landscape.
Before COVID, our focus was primarily on basic negotiation tactics and leveraging scale to control costs and manage the supplier base. Commodity pricing was relatively predictable, driven mostly by weather cycles, and supplier relationships were transactional, often optimized around the lowest delivered cost. Risk management typically relied on buffer inventories and exclusive supplier contracts.
Today’s environment, by contrast, is far more dynamic. Volatility is now the norm. Geopolitical tensions, climate extremes (which go well beyond seasonal weather patterns), and frequent supply chain disruptions have made forecasting significantly more complex. ESG considerations, particularly traceability and ethics, are shaping sourcing decisions, especially in the food sector. Consumers and investors alike are demanding transparency, and what was considered best practice just four years ago is being reevaluated. Many companies are reassessing global sourcing and shifting toward decentralized strategies to strike the right balance between agility and efficiency.
We’ve also moved from an era of pricing aligned to historical norms and seasonal trends, with contracts tied to calendar years, to a new reality driven by forward contracting. Pricing models today rely more on clean-sheet cost analysis and “should cost” frameworks, influenced by variables such as currency movements, interest rates, payment terms, and broad input costs.
And perhaps most critically, real-time intelligence has become indispensable. Buyers are now expected to maintain a pulse on up-to-the-minute commodity data, sentiment trends, and geopolitical risk, just to stay competitive and to establish effective risk mitigation strategies.
Without solid, timely, and contextual information, decisions are made on shaky grounds, driven by instinct rather than insight. As a CPO, I’ve seen firsthand how the absence of reliable data leads to suboptimal choices, missed opportunities, and increased exposure to risk.
It’s a complex and fast-moving world we’ve built for procurement leaders in just four short years.
[Expana] Based on your experiences at Kellanova and with prior roles, what tips/advice could you share with current CPOs on how to offset commodity price fluctuations or inflation?
[Dave McMurray] Not to “boil the ocean” here, but I’d distill this into six key themes that address inflationary pressures and commodity volatility head-on:
1. Embed Predictive Analytics & AI into Forecasting – We need to consider AI-driven models to simulate pricing scenarios, spot early inflation signals, and leverage external data, from weather events to geopolitical shifts and currency trends, to enhance forecast accuracy. This, in my view, is Expana’s “silver bullet”. Moreover, the integration of AI into an intelligence ecosystem is what enables buyers to become better prognosticators and more strategic decision-makers.
2. Implement Dynamic Hedging Strategies – Partner with finance to create commodity-specific hedging frameworks. Build agility into contracts through indexed pricing and cost-smoothing mechanisms that protect against sudden spikes.
3. Elevate SRM and Supplier Collaboration – Engage suppliers as strategic partners, share forecasts, co-invest in risk management, and develop win-win cost strategies. Diversifying across geographies and supplier tiers adds a layer of resilience and pricing flexibility.
4. Develop Dynamic Formulations – Collaborate with R&D to engineer alternate formulations that are shelf-ready and margin-protective when certain inputs become cost-prohibitive. Even small tweaks in grade or format can unlock big savings.
5. Strengthen Governance Around Inflation Pass-Throughs – Enforce tighter controls around supplier price increases by requiring independent market benchmarks (like Expana) and third-party validation. Transparency and external calibration are crucial before accepting inflation-based adjustments.
6. Foster Internal Alignment and Cross-Functional Partnership – Inflation shouldn’t sit solely with finance. It is important that we build awareness across operations, marketing, and leadership. Procurement’s role in protecting margin needs to be understood as a strategic lever, especially when pricing finished goods or setting promotional strategies.
[Expana] In a nutshell, how would you prepare for the unexpected or for geopolitical events we have no control over?
[Dave McMurray] This one’s never easy because it requires cross-functional alignment on something that’s neither growth nor productivity-driven. But risk doesn’t live in a silo. You have to bring finance, legal, operations, and other partners on board with the reality that proactive investment in resilience is just as critical as ROI projects.
That means embracing tools that look beyond price forecasting. Predictive technologies are essential for tracking geopolitical shifts, trade policy changes, and emerging supply chain vulnerabilities, using that data to build robust “what if” scenarios. These external signals often move faster than internal alerts, so relying solely on historical trends or standard dashboards just doesn’t cut it anymore. AI, in this context, isn’t simply about predicting cost curves, it’s about simulating disruption and crafting strategic responses before a crisis hits. The goal isn’t just to react quickly; it’s to prepare intelligently.
[Expana] When leading procurement teams, were there any ingredients/commodities which gave you more pain points than others?
[Dave McMurray] Frankly, the biggest pain points were often tied to those foodstuffs where market intelligence was limited and we had to lean heavily on suppliers, particularly in the non-publicly traded categories. While effective suppliers typically have good intentions, relying solely on them for intel is a risky proposition. For these commodities, it’s essential to triangulate data from multiple sources. Surrounding yourself with diverse perspectives (market analysts, industry networks, and third-party benchmarks) helps untangle the variables that influence price and availability.
In our case, the usual suspects included cheese, eggs, and specialty grains/edible oils. These categories had high variability and limited transparency, making them tough to manage. I’d also include paper packaging and proteins in that group, given their exposure to disease outbreaks, production cycles, and evolving ESG standards.
[Expana] What convinced you to join the Expana Advisory Board in April?
[Dave McMurray] I believe Expana is uniquely positioned to elevate its legacy deliverables by integrating the newest tools available: AI, predictive analytics, and dynamic market intelligence. That combination enables procurement teams to make smarter, faster, and more confident decisions. I’m passionate about this space, having lived through the challenges firsthand. Expana’s mission aligns with what I’ve felt was missing: reliable, aggregated data that empowers CPOs and their teams beyond just supplier relationships. Joining the Advisory Board felt like the perfect way to stay engaged post-retirement and contribute to building something impactful for the next generation of procurement leaders.
Join senior leaders like Dave McMurray at Expana’s Agri-Food Americas on September 23 – 24 in Chicago: https://www.expanamarkets.com/events/agrifood-americas/
Written by Simon Duke
