Beneo expands NAFTA sales team to support growing North American customer base

07 Sep 2017 --- To better serve its growing customer base in North America, functional ingredients manufacturer Beneo has announced a significant expansion of its NAFTA sales and support team.

“Consumer interest in maintaining healthier lifestyles for themselves and their families is a key driver in the expansion of Beneo’s sales team,” says Jon Peters, President of Beneo. 

“Interest from food and beverage manufacturers to collaborate with Beneo on ways to enhance their consumer products with our array of functional ingredients is at an all-time high. This expanded sales team of industry experts will offer even more support to our customers throughout the NAFTA region,” he added.

“Product development cycles become shorter and shorter so speed is an important factor in helping our customers with the right information and support to meet their product development timelines. Given the relevance of Beneo’s functional ingredients portfolio, we have the need to bring more experts onto the Beneo team to meet the demands of our customers. By continuing to expand our team, we are enhancing customer engagement for the benefit of food manufacturers,” Peters tells FoodIngredientsFirst.

“Health and wellness are important drivers behind many food company brand strategies in the market today. This is a result of a real need for these brands to improve the nutritional status of the products they are producing as well as address the growing consumer awareness around healthy eating,” Peters says. “These health and wellness trends fit very well with the portfolio of solutions that Beneo provides – including solutions for digestive health, prebiotic, sugar reduction, sugar replacement, low glycemic, gluten free, natural and non-GMO – just to name a few of the benefits that Beneo offers to the food industry.” 

According to Beneo’s press release, members of the company’s expanded sales team include:

• Mike Dail, Regional Sales Manager, Midwest US. Dail’s region includes Minnesota, North and South Dakota, Iowa, Nebraska, Wisconsin and Colorado. Mike more recently served as a Regional Sales Manager for FMC.
• Rick Jackson, Regional Sales Manager, Great Lakes, US, is joining Beneo after 11 years in customer management positions at DuPont Nutrition and Health. Jackson’s region includes Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky and Pennsylvania. 
• Ernesto Duarte, Sales Manager, supports Beneo’s sales activities in Mexico focusing mainly on the northern area of the country working from his office in Monterrey. Duarte joined Beneo after 10 years of experience in technical sales and brings with him a great deal of knowledge about fiber ingredients and their beneficial characteristics in food and beverage products.
• Steven Gumeny is to become NAFTA Regional Product Manager for rice ingredients and functional proteins early next month. Steven has been a member of the Beneo team since 2011 in customer-facing positions and supply chain management. 

“Beneo is committed to providing the food industry with solutions to improve nutrition and health. We are pursuing this strategy by continuing to increase our resources in the market to be more directly in contact with our food customers. The biggest part of this effort is by adding highly capable people with the right knowledge and experience that can help our customers to achieve their own brand strategies. In the past several years we have added to the Beneo North America team in the functions of sales, technical service, nutrition communication and product management. All of these functions create added value for our customers,” Peters says. 

FoodIngredientsFirst spoke with Peters at IFT 2017, where the company president talked about opportunities for sugar reduction using functional foods.

By Lucy Gunn