Ventura Departs Beanfields to Lead Alter Eco

Trading savory for sweet, CPG executive Arnulfo Ventura announced today that he has left bean-based snack brand Beanfields to be CEO of sustainable snack brand Alter Eco.

“I think we really have a chance to set the mark for what it means to be the regenerative snack company for the future,” Ventura told NOSH of his new employer. “As I think about the future, it’s going to be brands like Alter Eco that I think are ultimately going to win a disproportionate share with the market and consumers.”

Ventura has been CEO of Beanfields since 2018; before that he was with Califia Farms, specializing in e-commerce and business development, and also spent several years in the Naked Emerging Brands group at PepsiCo. His appointment follows this month’s departure of CEO Mike Forbes, who is now CEO of cleaning product company Safely.

Launched in 2003 as a spin-off of a French company that focused on selling Fair Trade products such as coffee, tea, hearts of palm and olive oil. The company has gradually moved away from commodity-oriented products and concentrated on chocolate, quinoa, and snacks, and in 2009 became a certified B-Corp. Strategic equity firm NextWorld Evergreen (NWE) acquired the brand from its co-founders and 40-plus investors in 2017. At the time the company reported $20 million in sales, a compound annual growth rate of +35% and distribution in 10,000 stores.

In late 2018 co-founders Edouard Rollet and Mathieu Senard stepped down as co-CEOs, bringing in Forbes. Under Forbes’ tenure, Alter Eco further shifted its portfolio towards sweet indulgences (aside from quinoa), including chocolate bars, chocolate truffles and, most recently, granola. Late last year the company added Mary-Ann Somers, the former General Manager of Hershey’s confectionery business, to its board of directors.

Ventura said he plans to initially focus on building the brand’s presence in natural and specialty retailers as well as growing direct-to-consumer sales, which currently are at 10% of revenue. Product assortment will likely continue to focus on indulgent offerings, he added.

“When I think about the opportunity here, it feels very familiar for me in the sense that it’s a brand that has potential to exist in multiple categories,” he told NOSH. “What I like about working with [Nextworld Evergreen] is that it’s kind of like optionality at its max, in terms of they’re willing to be very dynamic with me forming my vision for where this brand can be, and what that execution looks like and what time horizon that might be.”

Mark Rampolla, Beanfield’s Chairman and former CEO, was unable to comment on plans for a new CEO for the snack company. Ventura said Beanfields has a strong executive team, however.

He added that while there’s plenty of white space for the Beanfields team to pursue, he chose to leave the company simply because his time there was done. Noting that when he joined Beanfields in 2018 the seven-year-old company “was doing a nosedive…and had low single digit millions in sales revenues.” Four years later, he added, top line revenue has tripled and the company is “on a runway” to be profitable this year.

“When Mark and the board [originally] sought me out, they were looking for a brand builder: somebody that could turn around the ship, get it on stable footing, elevate it to another level and get it ready for what could be another level of growth,” Ventura said. “It’s kind of like ‘mission accomplished.’”