Former PepsiCo Executive to take Commercial Lead of DFI Globally

07 Oct 2015 --- Paul Magnotto, Founder & CEO of DFI, announced today that Richard Bellas has joined the DFI team as the company’s Chief Commercial Officer. 

Magnotto said, “We are delighted to have Richard on board earlier this year to lead the next phase of our journey, bringing DFI to life. His 22 years of executive experience at PepsiCo in various senior management roles: packaging commercialization, global procurement based in Hong Kong and the U.S., and leading its Advertising and Marketing Global Procurement Center of Excellence will help take us from development to the commercialization of our technology platform. One of Richard’s key responsibilities will be to coordinate and drive the growth of DFI with zero calories, great tasting, sweeteners that do not contain any transgenic materials. He will bring enormous energy to growing our bioplastics and methionine lines of business as well.”

Bellas said, “We live in a time of highly connected and savvy consumers that are deeply concerned about obesity, diabetes, health and sustainability issues, DFI has the vision to bring to market a broad range of products that meet consumer demands for taste while offering medically important health benefits in the most environmentally responsible ways. DFI’s patented technologies break new ground that will allow economic efficiencies to deliver products that will have enormous consumer acceptance. This is an opportunity to address important challenges in new ways.” 

Bellas’ employment portfolio includes extensive global experience and relationships at PepsiCo, where he is the holder of the Pepsi Swirl bottle patent globally, Coca-Cola and Procter and Gamble. Bioplastics are plastics derived from renewable biomass sources, such as vegetable fats and oils, corn starch, pea starch or microbiota. 

Methionine is a sulfur-containing amino acid, one of the essential amino acids, furnishing both methyl groups and sulfur necessary for a healthy metabolism.

DFI uses an innovative electrochemical process to transform common sugars into healthy and sustainable products found in nature, but that are otherwise difficult to manufacture. Specifically, DFI has discovered a breakthrough process for the production of erythritol, methionine and formic acid.