First Choice Ingredients (FCI), one of the largest dairy flavor companies in the United States, recently promoted Jason Pietrowski to Production Supervisor where he will manage employees, establish standards of performance and oversee daily production activities.

Pietrowski started with FCI in 2010 as a production worker in their Wet Operations division, providing ingredient production, as well as packaging and delivery support. As he learned more about the production process and gained new skills, like testing products to ensure they meet specifications, FCI promoted Pietrowski several times over the past seven years.

Pietrowski credits his background as a finish carpenter to his professional success at FCI. “Whether I am creating a dream kitchen or new dairy product, I have always been passionate about precision, accuracy and doing things right the first time around,” said Pietrowski. “My position at First Choice Ingredients gives me the opportunity to feed my passion and help pass along these standards to others on our team.”

First Choice Ingredients also recently announced the hiring of Laura Williams as R&D technologist to further enhance ingredient development and analysis.

Williams joins FCI from Nestlé where she ensured high standards of quality in their baby formula, health and nutritional food product lines, as well as tested finished products for fats, minerals, solids, ash and moisture content to confirm each product was within labeling claims.

“Laura’s instrumentation expertise is tremendous, but her experience in ingredient development, especially starches, is equally impressive,” said Pam Gribou, director of R&D and Applications at FCI. “As we continue to put even more functionality into our ingredients, whether it be mouth-feel or texture, Laura’s dynamic skillset will further support these initiatives. We are very excited to have her on our team.”

As a R&D technologist at FCI, Williams will develop innovative products and strategize new protocols for analytical analysis. And with FCI’s recent expansion into a third production facility, Williams and the rest of the applications team will have plenty of workspace to research, develop and scale up existing and new products.

For more information about First Choice Ingredients, visit www.fcingredients.com.