Cargill reshapes its cocoa & chocolate sales team to get closer to customers

Amsterdam, The Netherlands — August 22 2013 – Cargill’s cocoa & chocolate business has reshaped its sales team, to create a more customer-driven operation, under the leadership of newly-appointed Sales & Marketing Director, Emiel van Dijk.

Van Dijk, who joined from Cargill’s European refined oils business, led the reshaping of the sales function. He explains: “This initiative has been driven by our belief that by getting closer to our customers we can create genuine partnerships to make them even more successful.

“This new structure allows us to increase our engagement with customers, to understand and meet their needs more fully, with greater agility and efficiency.

”The 75-strong sales team – which includes a number of new appointments – is now organised in seven geographical clusters rather than on product lines. This brings the sales team physically nearer to customers, facilitating closer relationships. It also enables each sales person to have a more in-depth understanding of specific market requirements.

“A further benefit for customers is that they will now be served by a single person offering our total product portfolio – from butter and liquor to cocoa, chocolate, and coatings and fillings,” concludes Van Dijk.

The new customer-aligned sales structure operates worldwide, with North and South America already operating regional teams under regional sales leadership.

Contacts:  

Floyd Jebson +44 1869 353 813
[email protected] 

Steven Fairbairn: +44 1932 861174
 [email protected]

Cargill
Cargill is an international producer and marketer of food, agricultural, financial and industrial products and services. Founded in 1865, our privately held company employs 140,000 people in 65 countries. We help customers succeed through collaboration and innovation, and are committed to sharing our global knowledge and experience to help meet economic, environmental and social challenges.

Cargill’s Cocoa Promise

Cargill’s Cocoa Promise is a commitment by the company made in 2012 to continue to partner with local governments, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), customers and farmer organisations – to make a difference to the lives of farmers and their communities, and to create value for our customers and our business by securing better quality cocoa.  Cargill will continue to invest and provide financing, training and support to maintain and strengthen a sustainable cocoa supply chain in Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Cameroon, Vietnam, Indonesia and Brazil.

 About Cargill Cocoa & Chocolate:
Cargill Cocoa & Chocolate offers the food industry a wide range of both standard and customised cocoa and chocolate ingredients to be used in delicious bakery, confectionery, and dairy applications all over the world. Our product range includes high quality Gerkens® cocoa powders, chocolate including Wilbur®, Peter’s® and Veliche®, coatings, fillings, cocoa liquors and cocoa butters. With years of experience in technical food expertise Cargill supports its customers in new recipes and new product development.

Our facilities in Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Côte d’Ivoire, France, Germany, Ghana, the Netherlands, UK and the USA are fully dedicated to produce in accordance with the highest food safety standards.

To secure a good quality and sustainable supply of cocoa beans we have our own cocoa bean sourcing operations for buying, handling and/or exporting of cocoa beans in Brazil, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Indonesia and Vietnam. Presence in all the leading producing countries allows Cargill to oversee the supply chain from beans at origin to cocoa and chocolate products on our customers’ doorstep. In addition, extensive market research and analysis proves to be a source of valuable information to our customers.

For more information visit: for EMEA www.cargillcocoachocolate.com and for North America www.cargill.com/food/cocoachocolate