THOMASVILLE, Ga. — Packaged baked-goods manufacturer Flowers Foods Inc. has reorganized its leadership team and combined its fresh packaged bread and specialty snacking sectors to increase focus on brand growth, product innovation and improving cake business operations.
Mark Courtney, former president of the fresh packaged bread unit, has been named chief brand officer for the combined businesses. In this newly created role, Courtney will manage all Flower Foods brands, revenue management, shopper marketing and brand partnership programs.
David Roach, former president of the specialty snacking sector, has been named president of cake operations, where he will “focus exclusively on improving that area of the business,” Flower Foods said.
"Our new structure now unites all brand teams under Mark's leadership and enables greater collaboration and better resource allocation among our brand portfolio,” said Ryals McMullian, president and CEO of Flower Foods. “Importantly, while we have already addressed some operational inefficiencies within our cake bakeries, we expect that David's full attention to this area should drive quicker progress and capture significant opportunities to improve the profitability of that business."
Flower Foods has also launched a new standalone innovation team, led by Debo Mukherjee, chief marketing officer. Besides leading innovation, Mukherjee will help Flower Foods’ corporate development group seek new acquisition and investment opportunities.
Keith Wheller, chief sales officer for Flower Foods, will lead the company’s new foodservice sales functions.
"These changes, alongside a revised portfolio strategy, are designed to unleash the full potential of our brands and innovation efforts and are the result of a thorough organizational review we conducted over the past two quarters as part of our portfolio optimization initiative,” McMullian said. “We believe that these changes are more consistent with our strategic priority to focus on our brands and that they will bring a more structured approach to innovation. This will enable us to build on the strengths of our brands and bring our customers and consumers more new and exciting products."
Thomasville, Ga.-based Flower Foods' brands include Nature's Own, Dave's Killer Bread, Wonder and Tastykake. The company is one of the largest U.S. packaged bakery producers, garnering sales of $4.1 billion in 2019.
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