OFI names Roel van Poppel to the position of chief sustainability officer

van Poppel will lead the food solutions firm in its efforts to improve its environmental impact.

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OFI, a supplier of food and beverage ingredients, has named Roel van Poppel as its chief sustainability officer. He will take responsibility for scaling OFI’s ability to drive positive impact across its five leading product platforms (cocoa, coffee, dairy, nuts, and spices), with operations across more than 50 countries. He will report directly to CEO A. Shekhar and be a member of the Corporate Leadership Team.

van Poppel reportedly is an industry leader with extensive experience across both ingredients and sustainability. This includes senior leadership roles at Cargill and Wild Flavors before joining OFI parent company Olam Group in 2013 as the global commercial lead for its spices business. He then moved internally to lead the growth of the award-winning sustainability insights management system AtSource. Most recently, van Poppel was seconded by Olam Group as a co-founder of the wider industry-led sustainability measurement digital platform TRACT.

OFI reportedly aims to source, grow, and produce sustainable food ingredients that are good for consumers, farmers, and the world around us. Along with his leadership team, van Poppel is charged with bringing further focus to the company’s experience and expertise in addressing the multiple social and environmental challenges in food supply chains such as farmer poverty, deforestation, and greenhouse gas emissions. His key areas of focus will include:

Strengthening and embedding the OFI sustainability vision, strategy, and goals to deliver positive outcomes for farmer suppliers, customers, and wider ecosystem partners.
Partnering with customers and suppliers to drive change and deliver impact up and down the value chain, particularly through AtSource.
Anticipating and preparing for regulatory changes to provide customers with compliant and reliable supply.
Engaging wider stakeholder groups and expanding multi-stakeholder partnerships.
Continuing the development of rigorous tools to address key issues in the food & agri sector.
Driving robust, transparent, and verifiable reporting.

Commenting on the appointment, Shekhar said: “Sustainability sits at the heart of OFI’s business model so that we can partner with customers who want their products to benefit farmers and the planet. Roel brings the perfect mix of strategic vision, business acumen, and commercial leadership to inspire the whole of OFI to continually deliver on our purpose to Be the Change for Good Food and a Healthy Future.”

van Poppel adds, “It’s a privilege to lead the OFI sustainability team with its depth of expertise and relentless commitment. My mission is to grow the reach of OFI’s programs even further, collaborating with customers and suppliers on the ground to drive positive impact. Together, we will ignite greater opportunities and game-changing outcomes for OFI and our partners.”

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Jenni Spinner is the chief editor of Snack Food and Wholesale Bakery with more than 25 years of experience in business-to-business communications. She has written extensively about food production, safety and packaging; pharmaceutical drug development; concrete and masonry construction; and more. She holds a Bachelor’s in Communications from the University of Illinois. Jenni can be reached at spinnerj@bnpmedia.com.