Califia Farms Names Quest’s Ritterbush CEO; Will Continue to Expand Portfolio

Brad Avery

Plant-based food and beverage maker Califia Farms announced yesterday that it has named CPG industry veteran Dave Ritterbush as CEO. The company’s founder and longtime chief executive Greg Steltenpohl is set to remain on the board as an Executive Director.

Steltenpohl said he had planned for “several years” to retire from the role when he turned 65 years old. Now going on 66, Steltenpohl believes that freeing himself from the day-to-day operations of running Califia will allow him to become a better advocate for the plant-based food industry, he said.

Ritterbush comes to Califia from Quest Nutrition, where he served as president and CEO and led the company to a $1 billion acquisition by The Simply Good Foods Co. last year. Prior to Quest, he held CEO positions at Popchips and Premier Nutrition Corp. and also served as VP and general manager of Red Bull North America from 2007 to 2009.

According to Ritterbush, he planned to leave Quest this year and sought a position at a company with a mission to provide both sustainability and health and wellness.

“I think we all can see the revolution of plant-based foods and the intersection of wellness and sustainability,” Ritterbush told BevNET. “What I found in Califia is scale with a really pure mission. They have a level of authenticity that transcends itself and reaches all the way to the consumer. It was the deep passionate consumer base, not only with love of the product, but love of what the company stands for.”

Ritterbush said his goal for Califia is to continue growing the core business — which includes both plant-based milks and coffee products — while also continuing to introduce “thoughtful innovation.” Earlier this year the brand introduced a line of plant butters, and Ritterbush said the brand will continue to look beyond beverage as the platform expands.

As well, Califia Farms will look to expand its international footprint. While the company has multiple foreign investors, Ritterbush said Califia is still developing its international strategy and infrastructure and did not say which regions the brand might target.

“We see the plant-based movement happening not just in the U.S., but around the world,” he said. “We already have pockets of success that will open up the brand to distribution and success well beyond the borders of the United States.”

Greg Steltenpohl served as CEO of the brand since its founding in 2010. Though he plans to have a hands on role with the brand and with Ritterbush (his successors’ track record of working closely with founders played a significant role in the hiring decision), he believes leaving the company in new, younger hands will help Califia to continue scaling as a national and international brand.

“When you’re a CEO, you’re in the middle of so much day-to-day activity that the company can’t afford for you to be much of an ambassador,” Steltenpohl said. “I think being able to spend more time as an influencer rather than just a doer is part of the picture for me in the broader future.”

The transition comes eight months after Califia closed a $225 million Series D funding round in January, led by the Qatar Investment Authority. The company currently claims a valuation of $5 billion.

As one of the largest plant-based milk brands in the country, the brand’s flagship refrigerated almond milk line is currently the third highest selling brand in the category, up 6.2% to $91 million for the 52-week period ending July 12, according to IRI (trailing only Blue Diamond and Danone). In the same period, the brand’s RTD coffee business was up 10.2% to over $38 million. Since launching last year, its oat milks have rapidly secured shelf space nationwide, growing more than 3000% in the same 52-week period, to $7.9 million.

Moving into the Executive Director role, Steltenpohl said he will continue to develop product ideas and strategies for Califia, but his first goal is to better get to know Ritterbush and help bring him up to speed on the company’s operations.

He added that he and Ritterbush share “similar backgrounds” and see “eye to eye” on approaches to team building and approaches to maintaining growth. He also cited Ritterbush’s record expanding Quest Nutrition into new product categories, such as pizza, and that his experience with multi-channel, multi-category companies were a proper fit for “the complexity that exists at Califia.”

“It’s one thing to have those things, it’s another thing to master them at this stage of growth,” he said.

Ritterbush said he hopes to have a collaborative relationship with Steltenpohl and that he believes the founder will be “an enormous resource” as he takes the reins.

“He has the DNA of the brand pumping through his veins,” Ritterbush said. “The opportunity to attend to that is going to be incredible.”