Bradley D. Blum Previously he was the CEO of Burger King from December 2002 to July 2, 2004. He joined the company from Darden Restaurants, where he had headed the Olive Garden unit, but left after only 18 months citing strategic differences with Burger King's board. Blum was the CEO of Romano's Macaroni Grill from December 2008 to July 2010. In 2013 Blum co-founded Five to Seven, a restaurant investment firm that focused on “Good Food for the Planet” based on several central tenets.
Education
Blum graduated from Mariemont High School in 1972. Blum graduated from Denison University with a BA in economics and urban studies. He continued his formal education by earning an MBA in marketing and finance from Northwestern's J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management.
Career
General Mills
After college, Blum worked with General Mills as a marketing executive. He worked at General Mills on both a national and international level.
Blum helped to lead a start-up company called "Cereal Partners Worldwide" (CPW) in Switzerland; they had partnered up with Nestlé for an equal interest in the company, 50/50. Cereal Partners Worldwide is a large international company with an annual turnover of about two billion US dollars. Blum is credited with putting the first female athlete on a Wheaties box (Mary Lou Retton), and with putting the first African American athlete on a Wheaties box (Walter Payton). Blum also invented a new cereal for General Mills: Cinnamon Toast Crunch.
Olive Garden
Starting in 1994, Blum left General Mills and joined Olive Garden as its executive vice president of marketing. He was later promoted to president. For the next eight years he oversaw Olive Garden's growth. Under Blum's leadership as the chief executive, Olive Garden achieved 57 consecutive quarters of same-restaurant sales increases, with continually increasing profits. The company's restaurant branch average increased by 67 percent during Blum's time there. In 2000, he won the MUFSO (Multi-Unit Foodservice Operators) Operator of the Year, a very high honor within the restaurant industry. In early 2002, he left Olive Garden. Blum was responsible for quality assurance, purchasing, and distribution across all Darden-owned brands, including the global seafood supply for Red Lobster. He also evaluated emerging restaurant concepts for potential acquisitions. Blum has stated that the central tenets of this are that the food is "exceptionally good tasting; remarkably good for you; a good everyday value; and good for the environment – plus you should feel good after eating it." Winter Park Magazine wrote of this work that, "Blum is a visionary whose business accomplishments have made him a legendary figure in the food industry. Now, he’s tackling a worsening national problem — the obesity and diabetes epidemics, caused in large part by the food we eat — using insider knowledge and the same passion that he brought to bear as a CEO in the business world."
FoodFirst Global Restaurants
Blum and Brazilian-based investment firm GP Investments, Ltd. formed FoodFirst Global Restaurants, Inc. and acquired its first brands, Brio Tuscan Grille™ (Brio) and Bravo Cucina Italiana™ (Bravo) on May 24, 2018. In early 2020, Blum resigned as chairman and CEO but remains a Co-Owner of the company.
Personal life
Blum's hometown is Cincinnati, Ohio. His hobby is auto racing.