Ardo is preparing its Horizon 2035 strategy with a clear ambition: significantly grow and improve profitability. In a complex and global market spanning fruit, vegetables, and herbs across retail, foodservice, and industry, the key challenge was not a lack of data or ambition, but the need to make clear and well-founded strategic choices.

The organization needed to determine where to play, where to scale, and where to stop, while aligning these decisions with long-term value creation and operational impact across countries, product categories, and channels.

Business Markers supported Ardo in structuring and facilitating this strategic decision-making process.

We introduced a clear Where to Play / How to Win framework and guided the organization through a structured journey to define its commercial direction towards 2035. Starting from both an outside-in perspective and internal insights, we conducted interviews, consolidated data, and challenged existing assumptions to build a fact-based view on market attractiveness and Ardo’s ability to win.

Together with the teams, we identified profit pools, assessed leadership potential across markets and segments, and defined clear priorities in terms of country, product category, and channel mix. This included making explicit choices on where to invest, where to optimize, and where to exit, as well as balancing base products with higher value-added offerings.

What made the difference was not only the analytical depth, but the way the process was facilitated. Business Markers brought structure, challenged thinking, and ensured alignment across stakeholders, guiding the organization towards clear prioritization and decision-making.

The outcome was a set of concrete “Where to Play” choices, visualized through structured portfolio insights, providing a clear strategic direction for the next phase. In addition, we supported Ardo in defining the next steps towards the “How to Win” phase, laying the foundation for a fully integrated commercial strategy towards Horizon 2035.

This case illustrates how Business Markers helps organizations translate complexity into clear strategic choices, enabling focused growth and long-term value creation.