The Twin Cities Business Show

The AI Playbook Behind General Mills’ Digital Transformation

AI is going to transform every workplace, and that makes a lot of people afraid. At the first live taping of The Twin Cities Business Show, we asked Jaime Montemayor, the Chief Digital, Technology & Transformation Officer at General Mills, about this fear. No, he does not think AI is going to wipe out millions of jobs – but he thinks it will change them. It will change how businesses work, and the people that can use it to reinvent business processes will drive a lot of value in the months and years to come. He also believes that it will create new categories of jobs that don't yet exist. If you want to drive change at your organization with AI, you need to have a human in the loop. Jaime shared that at General Mills, there are processes that require more human touch than others, but the bigger the decision, the more critical it is to have someone making the final call. Their company has overhauled its tech stack and built an internal AI tool called MillsAI which contains a toolbox of approved, secured tools that their employees can use. Finally, he shared that cats are one of the biggest growth areas for General Mills. Cat ownership is growing faster than any other pet in the U.S., and Jaime shares how the company is capitalizing. They expanded from human food to pet food with the $8 billion purchase of Blue Buffalo in April 2018, and increased their footprint by buying Tiki Cat for $1.45 billion in late 2024.

Inside Bread & Butter Ventures: The VC Firm Backing Minnesota’s Next Big Companies

How can we get the venture and startup ecosystem in Minnesota to really take off? According to Mary Grove of Bread and Butter Ventures, we need to shift resources from investments in real estate and late-stage private equity into venture capital. Those investments could provide necessary oxygen to innovators that are looking to build and scale their companies and create growth engines for the state for many years to come. Mary says that we're in an AI bubble – but it's not going to pop soon. Your company needs to be thinking about your strategy: "Whether you are an AI company or not, there needs to be a component of an AI strategy."If you're building a company, here are the three things Mary says you need to think about before you raise venture capital: 1) What is the founder/product fit? Why you, why this problem, and why do you want to be on a ten year journey to build it? 2) What type of business are you building, and what's the best way to capitalize that business? Venture is a very specific type of funding, and you should make sure it's aligned with your company's goals before pursuing it. 3) Do you have a team of co-founders that you deeply believe in? Mary shared that the team is the biggest thing they look at before making an investment. What are your strengths as a leader, and is this who you want to be in the trenches with day in and day out?

Tens of Millions of Hourly Workers Have No Healthcare - River Health Wants to Fix That

There are 75 million hourly workers in the United States, and many of them are not eligible for employer sponsored health insurance. In this episode of The Twin Cities Business Show, Kobby Amoah, CEO of Minneapolis-based digital health company River Health, wants to help close that gap. His company is building digital health plans for hourly workers. They work with companies like Taco Bell and Raising Cane's to bring new healthcare options to their hourly employees. River Health relocated to Minneapolis after participating in a local health tech accelerator program because they viewed this market as a perfect one to build a health tech company in. Kobby shared more about why they decided to move the company and build it here. Standard health plans in the U.S. can cost upwards of 30% of an hourly employee's salary, which is often unaffordable for business owners, so River Health is attacking the market for tens of millions of these underinsured or uninsured workers to help bring them better options. Building a company is all about knowing your user – and for River Health, that meant learning as much as possible about what hourly workers need from a health plan. One key feature this led them to build was around subscription delivery. Kobby shared how this particular pain point is the type of thing that's invisible to many white collar workers. If you don't have a predictable schedule or work late shifts, it can be hard to find the right time to swing by the pharmacy to pick up a prescription. That's why their company has focused on delivering drugs directly to the homes of the workers that they serve.

Protein Frenzy: How Hormel is capitalizing on protein's big moment

On this episode of The Twin Cities Business Show, we sit down with Hormel Foods President John Ghingo for an in-depth conversation about where the company is heading. The company runs top food brands like SPAM, Skippy, Planters, Applegate, Herdez, and more.How did the protein frenzy take over America? He shared some details on the long-running consumer trend and how people have recently been looking more at the full range of health benefits offered by protein, including aging, bone health, weight management, and more. Hormel does protein "the old fashioned way", which Ghingo thinks is what sets them apart. People used to eat three square meals – today, they're more likely to eat five smaller meals. This trend has been driven by a number of things, including an increase in working from home. At the same time, snacks used to be about treats, but now they're more about fueling the body for the day. Hormel is focused on driving their brands towards fueling people during those snack windows, like expanding Skippy peanut butter from sandwiches into portable snacks. How does a company like Hormel predict what people are going to eat five years into the future? When thinking about supply chains, marketing, branding, and more, they need to know what people want way before they ever think about heading to the cupboard. Ghingo shared how they've mapped out consumer behavior across their day to find moments where they can meet them, then use that data to predict how people will be eating in the years to come. Come see us LIVE at Minneapolis Club this May 19th from 3 - 6 pm for AI Unleashed, where we'll host the first ever live episode of The Twin Cities Business Show with General Mills Chief Digital, Technology and Transformation Officer Jaime Montemayor. Tickets & Info: https://tcbmag.com/events/ai26/

The Future of Quantum Computing Runs Through Bloomington, Minnesota

In 2017, Skywater Technology was spun out from Cypress Semiconductor as an independent semiconductor foundry based in Bloomington, Minnesota. In 2026, it was announced that they would be acquired by quantum computing giant IonQ for $1.8 billion. This episode is about everything that happened in between. We sat down with the company's CEO, Thomas Sonderman, to hear more about their path to becoming an integral part of some of the most advanced technological supply chains in the United States. Sonderman shares how the company focused on growing their Advanced Technology Services (ATS) business, which pairs collaborative teams with clients that need rapid innovation and customized solutions for their technology. By marrying innovation as a service with manufacturing as a service, they've built a company that's grown from 300 to 900 employees in Bloomington with another 900 employees located across the U.S. Listen in to why the future of quantum computing runs through Bloomington.