Fresca Foods Names New CEO, Takes “Agile Approach” to Manufacturing Post-Pandemic

Amid both soaring consumer demand and supply chain constraints, it’s an “exciting and challenging” time to be in the food manufacturing business, according to Brandon Viar, the new CEO at natural product manufacturer Fresca Foods. After over two decades in the industry, the Colorado-based company is refreshing its leadership and growing its category offerings in an effort to embrace a new “entrepreneurial mindset.”

Formerly co-CEO, Viar has now assumed the position of sole CEO at Fresca Foods as of last week. The company’s other co-CEO, Mark Bible, stepped down earlier this month to take on the role of CEO at ingestible health and wellness product developer Innovative Labs. The leadership change is the latest move in a gradual evolution for the company that began nearly two years ago, with the departure of Viar and Bible’s predecessor Todd Dutkin, Fresca’s longtime CEO, who remains as chairman of the board.

“That was a decision [Dutkin] made with a pretty clear vision of bringing new ideas and new leadership style into the company, in order to start making some strategic changes in our positioning in the industry, our growth strategies, and [adding] some new perspective into the top leadership of the company,” Viar said.

Viar has worked with Fresca for nearly a decade, previously holding executive roles including CFO and chief commercial officer before taking on the co-CEO role in January 2020. In addition to Viar’s promotion, the company added two new unnamed members of its senior leadership team as shareholders in the business.

The change comes as demand for co-packers in the industry is currently “at levels we have not seen,” according to Viar, with much of it still going unmet. Viar said the company is “continuing to master” its current facility platforms — value-added cereal and granola, cookies, crackers and extruded baked goods and cold-formed bars — while also expanding its offerings with the opening of a nut butter line last month and a hot fill line set to go online in 2022.

“We’re in a position now where historically we’ve been very strategically focused and narrow, with our customer set and how we would grow the company, now we’re seeing that there’s an opportunity for us to take advantage of the unmet needs that exist in some of the platforms that we already have capabilities,” he said.

While business may be booming now, last year was a bit different, when the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic led brands to cut back on innovation as retailers sought to stock more core food and beverage items, Viar noted. Demand for products typically consumed outside the home, like bars, dipped, while interest in cereal grew. Now, he’s seeing brands addressing “pent up innovation needs,” across all categories as Fresca partners with brands to launch new products that are a “reaction to changing consumer needs.” Like many in the industry, the manufacturer also faced labor and staffing constraints, supply chain disruptions and equipment delays.

“Some of the agile principles by which the company grew have really borne out over these last 18 months, kind of by necessity,” he said. “Being able to be flexible and agile, always keeping our plant and associates safe, but being able to flex to those changes, not if they happen, but these days, it feels like it’s when they happen almost on a daily basis.”

While it continues to work with brands on innovation, M&A and investment has become less of a focus, Viar said. In 2017, the company invested $3.4 million in its client, cracker brand 34 Degrees. While that partnership is “still going strong,” Viar said Fresca believes the market opportunity for the company exists in value-added contract manufacturing and innovation services. After over 20 years in business, the company is taking lessons learned during the pandemic — when flexibility was key — to assume an “entrepreneurial mindset” in how it conducts business and collaborates with brands going forward, Viar said.

“The last couple years have been challenging for everybody but lots of learnings have come out of that, and I think it’s positioned us to be a more agile, reactive and proactive company,” Viar said. “As things start to return to whatever the new normal is, we’ll continue to kind of push the boundaries of our platforms and where we want to play.”