The company announced five new leadership roles to its executive and management teams to support strategic goals and expansion, and continue to invest in its long-term vision.

 In operations, Oksana Woloszczuk joins in the newly created executive role of Chief Supply Chain Officer. Amy’s welcomes Steve Kravariotis as VP of Supply Chain Planning and David Griego as Senior Director of Engineering. On the human resources and communications side, Goretti Hamlin returns to Amy’s as VP of Human Resources, and Felicia Collins joins as Senior Director of Communications.

“Our business is increasingly complex with a growing workforce. With over 2,600 amazing people who produce hundreds of thousands of meals a day, we want to make sure their needs are met and we’re able to source and manage a global network of organic farmers, processors, and ingredients. The new roles will help us do that,” said Andy Berliner, CEO of Amy’s.

Oksana Woloszczuk joins Amy’s as Chief Supply Chain Officer. She is a proven leader with 30 years of experience in operations, business expansion, strategic planning, and P&L accountability. Oksana was most recently Vice President, North American Integrated Supply Chain at McCain, where she led all aspects of safety, quality, continuous improvement, supply chain and engineering for the United States and Canada. Before that she spent over 11 years with Kellogg in successive leadership positions.

Steve Kravariotis joins Amy’s as VP of Supply Chain Planning with over 30 years of experience in sales and operations planning, demand planning, supply planning, scheduling, and materials planning. Steve’s experience includes leadership and global roles at Avon Products, The Clorox Company, Delmonte/Big Heart Pet Brands, and Bio-Rad Laboratories.

David Griego joins Amy’s as Senior Director of Engineering, bringing over 30 years of food and beverage manufacturing experience that will help the company streamline plant operations and utilize automated manufacturing systems. David’s past roles include Senior Director of Engineering for Del Real Foods, VP of Engineering for Passport Foods, Director of Engineering for Ruiz Foods, and Senior Director of Engineering for Sugar Foods.

Goretti Hamlin rejoins Amy’s as VP of Human Resources, overseeing the department. As a bilingual and strategic leader, she will continue to work with, and build and develop the employees at Amy’s Kitchen. Goretti previously spent 16 years at Amy’s leading employee-centric initiatives for the manufacturing sites.

Felicia Collins joins Amy’s as Senior Director of Communications. With over 20 years of experience building and leading communications in the food, health and wellness space, Felicia brings her strategic insight to lead internal and external communications, innovation, and partnerships. Her past roles include Head of Marketing for Kiss the Ground, VP of Communications at Tyson Foods, and Senior Vice President and Group Manager at Edelman leading food clients such as Walmart and Darden Restaurants.

The company “We are happy to welcome Jeff as our next CEO to guide organic food and farming into the future,” said Steve Pierson, president of the Organic Valley Board of Directors and a dairy farmer from Oregon. “He shares our values and vision of nourishing people, animals and the earth through ethically sourced organic food from small family farms. He has the skills and experience to navigate the complex challenges facing small organic family farms.”

Jeff Frank joins from a 25-year career at Hormel Foods, where he demonstrated exceptional leadership skills and a strong ability to drive business growth. He began his journey with Hormel Foods in 1998, holding various senior roles in product and brand management. In 2009, he took on the role of vice president of marketing at MegaMex Foods. He was later promoted to president and CEO of MegaMex Foods, where he successfully led global supply chain efforts and brought successful consumer packaged goods to the market.

Frank holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration and Spanish from the University of Minnesota-Duluth, an MBA from the University of St. Thomas and an executive certificate from UCLA’s Anderson School of Management. He has also completed the Executive Education program at Harvard Business School. Frank has departed from his role at Hormel as group vice president of grocery products to join Organic Valley as its third-ever CEO.

“It’s truly an honor for me to join the cooperative. I have a deep admiration for the mission of this organization, and I’m excited to collaborate to drive continued success into the future!” Frank said. “I look forward to working with the board, the farmer-members and teams across the cooperative and the industry to expand the impact of this revolutionary and independent food lighthouse, while staying true to its values and mission of producing ethically sourced food from organic family farms.”

Released its annual Better for All Report, which details UNFI’s progress toward its Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) commitments during the Company’s 2022 fiscal year, which ended July 30, 2022. In its 12th year of environmental and social reporting, UNFI reported progress in nine impact focus areas consisting of Customer Health & Safety, Energy Efficiency, Governance, Associate Safety & Well-Being, Climate Action, Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion (DEI), Community Development, Responsible Procurement, and Waste Reduction. This year, the Company launched three new science-based targets, bringing its total goals to 15 across its entire Better for All strategy.

UNFI’s Better for All strategy continues to focus on proactively engaging with the people growing, making, and moving the products the Company distributes. As highlighted in this year’s report, engagement efforts include new customer surveys, continued conversations with investors, and cross-functional efforts to respond to associate feedback for additional DEI and associate wellbeing initiatives. The Company also proactively engaged with suppliers, including making investments in platforms such as UNFI’s recently launched Climate Action Hub, marking the first step in a more collaborative approach to address some of today’s most critical issues.

In its fiscal year 2022, UNFI reported the following milestones in support of its goal to build a food system that is better for its people, its communities, and the planet, resulting from ambitious and innovative efforts across the Company:

• Launched the Climate Action Hub, starting with the release of the Climate Action Guide for Business – a free resource for suppliers.
• Created the UNFI Foundation Food Equity Grant, awarding the Southside Community Land Trust in Providence, R.I. $100,000 to help promote food equity, eliminate hunger, and improve public health.
• Doubled year-over-year spending with diverse suppliers as a result of a clarified action plan to better identify, source, and assist diverse suppliers with certification and planning needed to grow their business with UNFI.
• Launched the installation of a roof-mounted solar array at UNFI’s distribution center in Howell, N.J., the Company’s largest to date.
• Completed a waste audit and kicked off an active audit for all owned brands retail packaging to enable sustainability progression across our brands portfolio.
Recognized as one of the “Best Places to Work for LGBTQ+ Equality” and one of the “Best Places to Work for Disability Inclusion.”
• Launched a new monthly campaign, called Difference Maker Spotlight, to highlight associates’ contributions to Better for All via their everyday responsibilities.

“In the past year we’ve made a focused effort to holistically integrate our Better for All strategy throughout the organization, as well as proactively engage our stakeholders, from our associates to our supply chain partners, on issues from climate to food equity to DEI,” said UNFI Chief Executive Officer, Sandy Douglas. “That approach has yielded some meaningful achievements this year and, in several areas, also allowed us to establish the organizational structures and processes needed to make progress against future goals. While we are proud of the progress we have made, we recognize that in many ways we are just at the beginning of our journey and that there is much more to be done. We look forward to continuing this important work in the coming years.”

Climate Action Teamwork

The launch of the Climate Action Hub comes after almost two years of partnership with the Climate Collaborative, a community of businesses joining forces to create pathways to action and working together to create solutions on climate. The new platform offers UNFI suppliers a variety of tools and resources, including opportunities for suppliers and partners to learn from experts and each other, to innovate, and scale climate solutions across the food system. Additionally, the Company has made its Climate Action Guide for Business, which offers step-by-step guidance for how to measure and disclose impact, commit to ambitious targets, and identify opportunities for action, available to everyone for free with the hopes of fast-tracking collective action toward a decarbonized future.

“Approximately 97 percent of UNFI’s total emissions are a result of our upstream supply chain, which is why we are committed to empowering our suppliers to take climate action. As one of the country’s largest wholesalers, we are a connector between retail, brands, and communities and our leadership and education to others can help amplify the important role we all play in making a positive impact on our climate,” said Alisha Real, UNFI’s Vice President of ESG & Social Impact. “With the validation of our science-based targets this year, we are ready to accelerate our action and lead by example to support our communities and the planet.”

The annual edition of the report, which can be read at the newly updated BetterForAll.UNFI.com, is guided by leading internationally recognized frameworks, including Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) and Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB). For added transparency, stakeholders looking for GRI and SASB reporting can find respective indices in the report’s appendix. The report also includes the Company’s disclosure aligned to recommendations of the Task Force on Climate-Related Disclosures.

Two Dubai-based companies and several individuals were recently charged in an unsealed indictment in the District of Maryland for their role in a multimillion-dollar scheme to export non-organic grain to the U.S. Sold as certified organic grain.

Dubai-based Hakan Agro DMCC and Hakan Organics DMCC, as well as Goksal Beyaz, Nuray Beyaz and Mustafa Cakiroglu from Turkey, are charged with conspiracy, smuggling and wire fraud. Hakan Agro and Hakan Organics debuted on January 5 in the Maryland District.

The plan to cut more than 18,000 jobs, was announced on Jan. 4 message from Amazon CEO Andy Jassy to employees.

Jassy said that in addition to economic uncertainty, another factor contributing to the layoffs was Amazon’s rapid hiring, which it has undertaken in recent years to meet increased demand during the pandemic.

The last major hiring surge occurred in October 2022. In preparation for the holidays, the company is looking to fill 150,000 open positions across its packaging, order picking, sortation and shipping operations.

The hiring surge comes after the retail giant’s revenue fell in the third quarter. Amazon reported net income fell to $2.9 billion, or 28 cents per diluted share, in the quarter that ended Sept. 30, compared with $3.2 billion, or 31 cents per diluted share, in the third quarter of 2021. Operating income fell to $2.5 billion, compared with $4.9 billion a year earlier. The North American segment had an operating loss of $400 million compared with an operating profit of $900 million a year earlier.

“We want to find the right balance between making long-term investments for our customers, improving operational efficiency, and doing more with less,” Brian Olsavsky, Amazon’s senior vice president and chief financial officer, said on the company’s third-quarter earnings call.

In November 2022, Amazon eliminated several jobs in its devices and books divisions and announced voluntary pay cuts for some employees in its PXT organization. At the time, Jassy warned of further job cuts in early 2023.

“These changes will help us pursue long-term opportunities with a stronger cost structure; however, I am also optimistic that unless we hire big names and cut some roles, we will be creative, imaginative and scrappy during this time,” Jassy wrote in his Jan. 4 message. “Long-term companies go through different phases. They’re not in blockbuster mode every year.”

Amazon has not notified employees affected by the latest round of layoffs.

“Typically, we wait to communicate these findings until we can speak to those directly affected,” Jassy wrote. “However, since one of our teammates shared this information externally, we decided it was best to share this news sooner so you can hear the details directly from me.”

Affected employees will be notified by January 18.

Jassy noted that the company will work to support those affected by providing a package that includes separation pay, transitional health insurance benefits and outside job placement assistance.

Source: Amazon, progressive grocer, Yahoo Finance

ByHeart, a next-generation baby nutrition company, announced today that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Cascadia Nutrition, an FDA-registered packaging and blending facility in Portland, OR. The acquisition will serve to further ByHeart’s goal of diversifying and building resilient, high-quality infant formula production in the U.S. by achieving complete end-to-end control and oversight of product manufacturing.

ByHeart is acquiring Cascadia from the Balogh family and DPI Group, a non-profit organization dedicated to bringing transparency to the packaging process while identifying and creating job opportunities for individuals with employment barriers. Cascadia has been packaging infant formula for international brands for the past 5 years; pending FDA registration, ByHeart’s acquisition will enable the facility to begin serving the U.S. market, further strengthening the country’s resilience against future shortages. The facility’s commitment to impact and highest quality standards is closely aligned with ByHeart’s culture and values. As part of the acquisition, ByHeart will not only maintain the facility’s existing workforce but also employ members of the Balogh family, ensuring that their mission remains steadfast.

“We are very pleased to join forces with a partner who shares our vision of bringing high-quality infant formula to babies and parents everywhere, an urgency widely recognized during the current infant formula shortage. As a result of its five-year regulatory and clinical journey, ByHeart is now uniquely positioned to serve the needs of the U.S. infant formula market with the only new dedicated packaging facility, pending FDA registration,” said Ashley Balogh, President of Cascadia.

ByHeart has provided the FDA with a regulatory submission to complete the requirements for registering Cascadia for the U.S. infant formula market. In parallel, the company will begin integrating Cascadia packaging into its fully owned manufacturing supply chain and expects to resume supplying its customers with its high-quality infant formula in the second quarter of the year.

“As a company committed to parents, our goal has always been full ownership and oversight of our end-to-end manufacturing process. We managed to achieve that goal with the exception of packaging which was conducted by a reputable third-party partner while we worked towards bringing that piece in-house,” said Ron Belldegrun, CEO and co-founder. “This acquisition will enable full control over our manufacturing process so that we can deliver a product at the highest standards of quality, safety and reliability for our ByHeart families. The Cascadia acquisition represents another important step forward as we continue to expand our investments in manufacturing infrastructure, infant formula innovation, and industry-leading quality standards.”