Please share a little about yourself and your role at Cargill.
I work in the Growth Ventures team for Cargill Protein-North America (CPNA) where I am the Director of Emerging Products and Solutions. My role focuses on identifying, incubating, and commercializing new business opportunities in emerging spaces like carbon, digital, and e-commerce. I originally joined Cargill in 2017 straight out of business school with the corporate strategy team. I have also worked in digital innovation and startup partnerships for Cargill-Digital Foundry and in strategy/mergers & acquisitions for CPNA.
What was your main motivation for volunteering with PFS?
Two factors motivated my interest in PFS once the opportunity was presented. First, I studied international development in undergrad and studied abroad in South Africa where I had the opportunity to support community development through entrepreneurship in a township near Stellenbosch. PFS’ dedication to capacity-building in Africa felt like a spiritual continuation of this experience.
The second motivation was my fairly recent entry into Cargill via its corporate strategy team in 2017 (around when I joined PFS). I was new to both the functional role, strategy development, and food/ag, and saw volunteering with PFS as a development opportunity that would help me learn more about project management and the industry.
What is your favorite part of volunteering with PFS?
The two companies I have worked with (Kentaste and Full Spoon Limited) both operate in markets where Cargill has little or no presence (coconuts and peanuts, respectively), so it has been fun to learn more about both from the client company’s founders. In addition, both clients have needed help with food safety projects, which is a new functional space for me to learn at a high level.
What would you say to a colleague who is interested in volunteering with PFS, but hesitant to start?
Dive in! There are a lot of companies with projects that need the type of food/ag expertise companies like Cargill can provide.
At PFS, partnership is a foundational component of who we are and what makes us sucessful. Every year, we honor several individuals who embody the qualities of our founders, John Mendesh and Peter Erickson. These awards go to people who most demonstrate enthusiasm, drive for results, employ creative problem solving, and show tenacity, grit, wisdom, and humility. Please join us in celebrating our fourth annual PFS Service Award winners…
John Mendesh Award
Gloria Otto, Partners in Food Solutions Program Associate – Ghana
"Gloria is never not smiling, even when the work can be stressful or unpredictable. She oversees a difficult portfolio, but she never shows frustration. Instead, she is focused on how to solve the problem in a way that is achievable and supported by the most people. She does not give up and always has a warm attitude through it all." - PFS Staff Member
Niels Van Mossevelde, DSM Associate Scientist II – Netherlands
"Niels has been an active Client Lead for a while now. He has supported the client with very minimal staffing resources and has been very patient with the client even at their busiest times. He has always joined the project calls with a smile on his face and helped provide solutions to the client apart from leading calls.” - PFS Staff Member
Peter Erickson Award
Eleanor McSweeney, Bühler Business Development Manager – Switzerland
"Eleanor served as a Client Lead for our client in Côte d’Ivoire. She served as a formidable translator, project manager, and always reverted to the team with ideas to overcome project challenges. She worked extremely hard and developed an excellent rapport with the project team to ensure that the client completed their HACCP and Yield Increase Project. She was also prompt with communication and would close projects immensely well. - PFS Staff Member
Dan Dietz, Smucker Director of Engineering & Technical Services – USA
“Dan has been one of the most active Smucker volunteers since they joined PFS. He has already volunteered on three different services and shown so much commitment to the work. He has been patient and understanding and willing to stay on and support a client even while there was political unrest in Ethiopia causing major delays with his client. He offers so much expertise and guidance in the areas of process optimization and product formulation and he does it with grace and humility." - PFS Staff Member
Established in 2010, Fastizers Food and Confectionary is one of Nigeria’s fastest-growing consumer goods companies. The company began by making sweets out of a home kitchen ten years ago and now distributes its products across the country to 26 different states and counting. To meet growing demand, Fastizers Food and Confectionary looked to Partners in Food Solutions for support in expanding their current production facility, from the parking lot to the processing area.
A volunteer from The J.M. Smucker Co., Christopher Ray, was tasked with supporting Fastizers with their facility design project. “I’ve been working at Smucker in R&D since 2016 and have worked within our coffee, Uncrustables, jams and jellies, and ice-cream toppings businesses,” said Chris. “I was looking for an organization in which I can use my educational background and engineering skills that I’ve developed
throughout my career to help in a meaningful way. When I heard about Partners in Food Solutions, I knew I had to get involved.”
Working with another volunteer from Hershey, Christopher reviewed the client’s current facility design and came up with a new design that would allow them to expand from one processing line to four while also ensuring the factory would be HSE and GFSI/FSMS certification compliant. “This volunteer work correlated with one of the projects I was doing at Smucker at the time,” said Christopher. “I thoroughly enjoyed applying my skills to this project and learning about a new company in a different country. Having the opportunity to network with other professionals at different companies was fun, too!”
Since the project finished last year, Fastizers Food and Confectionary has already made significant progress in expanding its facility. The updated layout is a significant improvement from the initial draft, and additional considerations for food safety, human safety, and the environment have been incorporated. Further, information on how dough temp affects the baking has been factored into the quality control program and the volunteer’s edits on the flow made it easier for the client to communicate with their facility architect on their desired plans. Fastizers Food and Confectionary plan to finish constructing the new facility by August 2022.