Freshpet Inc. on Wednesday said Heather Pomerantz has resigned as chief financial officer to pursue other opportunities. Richard Kassar, its vice chairman, will serve as interim CFO while it conducts a search for a successor.
The Secaucus pet food maker said it made several other changes in its organizational structure designed to enhance its capabilities and support its long-term objectives in production, quality, engineering, logistics and finance.
“The rapid growth of our business, coupled with a fluid operating environment, has created a unique set of opportunities and challenges over the past two years. We remain committed to meeting our objectives and are making some targeted investments to reduce volatility and establish an even greater set of capabilities to ensure that we deliver the profitable growth that we believe is inherent in this business,” Billy Cyr, Freshpet’s CEO, stated.
Leadership changes include:
- Executive Vice President of Manufacturing Steve Weise, whose intention to retire was announced previously, will remain with the company in a consulting role through 2023 to support improvements in the company’s quality assurance systems and other components of the company’s manufacturing and supply chain.
- Jay Dahlgren, previously vice president of operations at J.M. Smucker Co., is now serving as a consultant to the company with a focus on mitigating manufacturing and supply chain risks. Dahlgren has a long track record of operations success with Nestle Purina and Big Heart before his time at J.M. Smucker.
- Vice President of Manufacturing Ricardo Moreno will be appointed senior vice president of manufacturing & engineering. The company expects to backfill the VP of manufacturing role as it builds out this important area of its operations.
- Senior Vice President of Engineering Michael Hieger will broaden his responsibilities to include all capital expansion projects and engineering resources and will report to Moreno. Hieger successfully led the creation and construction of Kitchens 1.0 and 2.0 in Bethlehem and the startup of Kitchens South.
