KANSAS CITY — New hires at Flowers Foods, Inc., Post Consumer Brands and Ingredion, Inc. headline key personnel moves taking place across the food industry. The moves include:
Joselina Peralta has been named chief procurement officer and senior vice president of end-to-end supply chain at MamaMancini’s Holdings, Inc., East Rutherford, NJ. Ms. Peralta’s previous experience in the food industry includes being a member of the Procurement Foundry as well as vice president of global procurement and later vice president of global supply chain and procurement operations at Troy Corp. While working at the latter, Ms. Peralta earned the No. 23 spot in Supply Chain Digital’s “Top 100 Global Women in Supply Chain” list. Ms. Peralta received a bachelor of business administration degree and a master of science degree in economics at Pontifica Universidad Católica Madre y Maestra.
Tania Moreira Parra has been named senior account manager of the western region sales team at AAK, Edison, NJ. In her new role, Ms. Parra will be responsible for managing the company’s organic oils program in the United States and Canada as well as lead and grow a portfolio of food manufacturing customers to improve relationships, create plans for strategic account management and look for potential growth opportunities. Ms. Parra previously worked at AAK Mexico for 12 years as sales manager, and she won her four Global Sales Excellence awards while holding this position. Ms. Parra also managed the company’s confectionery segment. Prior to joining AAK Mexico, Ms. Parra was part of the technical sales team at the cocoa processing company Ecom Trading. She received a bachelor of science degree in food technology and a master of business administration degree at Cardiff University.
Abigail Shewalter has been promoted to manager of indirect procurement – facilities, services and contract manufacturing at Flowers Foods & Subsidiaries, Thomasville, Ga. She was previously a senior procurement analyst at the company. Prior to Flowers Foods & Subsidiaries, Ms. Shewalter was a procurement coordinator and later procurement analyst at Chipotle Mexican Grill, Inc.
John Hunter has been named the operations director at Navara Oat Milling Ltd., Kettering, England. Mr. Hunter has more than 40 years of experience in the food industry, holding a wide variety of roles such as plant technologist at ABR Chemicals Ltd., mill manager and later general manager at Allied Mills Ltd., operations director at Jas Bowman & Sons Ltd., senior partner – director of operations at IMI Vision, principal consultant and later food process and project management professional at South Pointe Consulting LLC, crop science group leader for the biofuels plant support team at Novozymes North America and sales account manager of bakery supply systems at Bühler Inc. Mr. Hunter received a bachelor of science degree with honors in biochemistry at the University of Bristol.
Patrick O’Brien has been promoted to category sales manager of batters and breading at Ingredion Inc., Bridgewater, NJ. Mr. O’Brien has been with Ingredion since June 2007, holding several positions, including marketing specialist, marketing analyst, marketing manager – bakery, manager of strategic business development, senior manager of marketing at Wholesome Springboard, regional platform leader of clean and simple ingredients in the United States and Canada, and sales manager of east region for systems and ingredients solutions. Prior to Ingredion Inc., Mr. O’Brien was a sales intern at Kraft Foods and later Origlio Beverage. Mr. O’Brien received a bachelor of science degree in food marketing at Saint Joseph’s University.
Maxime Millet has been named brand manager of Malt-O-Meal at Post Consumer Brands, Minneapolis. Mr. Millet has been with the company for more than three years in a variety of roles, including associate brand manager of Great Grains, associate brand manager of Honey Bunches of Oats, senior associate brand manager of Honey Bunches of Oats and brand manager of HoneyComb and Kids Classics. Prior to Post Consumers Brands, Mr. Millet was a consultant for brand management at Kellogg Co. Mr. Millet received a bachelor’s degree in mathematics, history, geopolitics, philosophy, English and German at Saint-Jean de Passy, a master’s degree in finance at TBS Education and a master of business administration degree in marketing from the Carl H. Lindner College of Business at the University of Cincinnati.
David Knopf has been named chief executive officer of New York-based Livekindly Collective. He first joined the company as chief financial officer before gaining the additional role of co-CEO. Prior to Livekindly Collective, Mr. Knopf held several positions at the Kraft Heinz Co., including vice president of finance, vice president – planters category lead and CFO.