The Category
Food brands fail commercially, then they fail operationally
The first failure is a team where nobody has sat across from a category buyer and defended a line review. The second is demand arriving and the supply chain not holding, usually because co-manufacturing got treated as a procurement exercise instead of a core capability.
We recruit for both halves. Commercial leaders who understand category management, trade spend and the real economics of a promotion that looked good on a slide. Operations leaders who have scaled a co-man network, taken a plant through an audit, and held cost per case when input prices moved against them.
Better for you is where most of our food work sits, and it carries its own filter. Clean label reformulation, certification regimes, and a consumer who reads the panel. Operators from conventional food routinely underestimate how much that constrains the business.
- 01
- Line review experienceNot whether they managed an account. Whether they held price in the room when the buyer pushed.
- 02
- Co-man depthWe ask for a specific quality excursion they handled. Vague claims of co-man experience are everywhere.
- 03
- Plant realityOn-site roles are geographically constrained. We scope relocation honestly at kickoff instead of wasting your interviews.
What We Cover
Roles We Place Across Food and Snack Brands
We place leaders from mid-management through the C-suite, including the on-site roles most firms avoid. Work with a specialized CPG recruiter or food and beverage recruiter who knows your world, or see how our search model works.
Commercial
- VP of Sales
- Director of Natural Channel
- National Account Manager
- Category Management Director
- Club Channel Lead
- Broker Manager
Marketing
- VP of Marketing
- Brand Manager
- Shopper Marketing Manager
- Innovation Manager
Plant and Manufacturing
- Plant Manager
- Production Supervisor
- Director of Continuous Improvement
- Maintenance Manager
- Sanitation Manager
Food Safety and R&D
- Director of Food Safety and Quality
- Food Scientist
- QA Manager
- Regulatory Specialist
Supply Chain and Leadership
- VP of Supply Chain
- Director of Procurement
- Demand Planner
- CEO
- COO
Candidate Evaluation
You meet the person before the first interview
Every finalist arrives with a written evaluation, not a resume and a sentence. Interview notes from several conversations, a homework assignment tied to your biggest need, career motivations, and the resume itself, merged into one document on your portal.
You will not get a weekly summary email. You will see the candidate the day we add them.
Where we work in the category
- Better for you and natural
- Bakery and baked goods
- Frozen and refrigerated
- Protein and alternative protein
- Shelf stable and pantry
- Confectionery
- Private label and co-man
- Foodservice
Common Questions
Food and Snacks recruiting, answered
Which food roles are hardest to fill?
Plant and quality leadership. The pool is regional, rarely looking, and constrained by relocation and shift realities. Commercial searches move faster because the candidates are more mobile.
Do you recruit for food manufacturing and plant roles?
Yes. Plant managers, production managers, directors of food safety and quality, and continuous improvement leaders are a regular part of our work. These are on-site searches and we scope geography honestly at kickoff.
Do you work with better for you and natural brands?
Yes, it is our largest food segment. Clean label reformulation, certification requirements and natural channel distribution narrow the pool in ways that matter, and we screen for that rather than treating it as general food experience.
Can you help us hire a first VP of Sales?
Yes, and it is the most consequential hire a growing food brand makes. For The Jackfruit Company we helped define a role that had never existed inside the company and delivered an offer in four weeks.
How do you evaluate co-manufacturing experience?
We ask the candidate to walk through a real co-man relationship, including a quality excursion or capacity constraint they handled. The ones who have genuinely done it can narrate the failure and the fix.
Hiring a food or snack leader?
Tell us the seat. We will show you how we would run the search.