Last updated on April 3rd, 2018 at 12:35 pm
Ocean Spray Cranberries‘ board of directors has unanimously elected Bobby Chacko as the company’s president and CEO. He also was elected to join the board of directors.
Chacko will replace outgoing CEO Randy Papadellis, who announced he was stepping down in February. Chacko was named president and COO in January and joined Ocean Spray in 2017 as chief growth officer.
“When we first met Bobby, it quickly became clear we had found what we were looking for—a tremendous leader that could lead the next generation of talent at Ocean Spray,” said Peter Dhillon, chairman of the Ocean Spray board of directors. “This announcement is the culmination of more than one year of work by our CEO succession committee. We spent a lot of time evaluating the needs of the business, speaking to stakeholders and ultimately looked at several candidates both internal and external. Bobby was the clear choice.”
“I’m truly honored for the chance to lead this iconic business,” said Chacko. “Since joining Ocean Spray last year, I’ve been so impressed with the people behind the cooperative—700 family farms and more than 2,000 colleagues all working together to connect farms and families. Ocean Spray’s story is close to nine decades old, but we are just getting started. I want to thank the board, growers and my colleagues for giving me the opportunity to write the next chapter with them.”
Prior to joining Ocean Spray, Chacko served as regional president of Mars Drinks, where he had total responsibility for the North American business. Before joining Mars Inc., Chacko had 20 years of corporate leadership and entrepreneurship experiences, encompassing strategy, innovation, marketing and commercialization at companies such as The Coca-Cola Co., AB Inbev and GE Capital. Chacko brings in-market, general management experiences and regional perspectives on developed and emerging markets across Asia, Latin America, North America and Europe.
Ocean Spray is an agricultural cooperative owned by more than 700 cranberry growers in the U.S., Canada, and Chile who have helped preserve the family farming way of life for generations.
Formed in 1930, Ocean Spray is a producer of cranberry juices, juice drinks and dried cranberries. The cooperative’s cranberries are featured in more than one thousand products in more than 100 countries worldwide. The manufacturer has more than 2,000 employees and nearly 20 cranberry receiving and processing facilities and earns approximately $2 billion in revenue annually.
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