Bell Flavors & Fragrances is excited to announce the recent hire of Mike Haracz, senior corporate chef; Ben Stanley, corporate chef – sweet applications manager; Harry Park, research chef; as well as promotion of Casey Schallert to the position of senior research chef, at their headquarters in Northbrook, IL.

Chef Mike joins Bell with an extensive Culinary, R & D and Development career. Prior to Bell, Chef Mike was the manager of Culinary Innovation at McDonald’s. In this role, he collaborated to bring menu concepts and ideas through a discovery process. While there, Chef Mike maintained up-to- date knowledge of culinary trends and techniques. He collaborated across the organization including suppliers, operations, dietitians, food scientists, marketing, supply chain and senior leadership.

In addition, Chef Mike has served as corporate executive chef with Nation Pizza and Foods and held the position of culinary development chef with Woodland Foods and held similar roles with CSSI, Inc., Orval Kent Foods. He experienced being a Certified Trainer with Uno’s Bar and Grill in Rhode Island and was a sous chef at the Wentworth Club in Surry, England and Alpine Country Club.

Chef Mike earned his Bachelors, Applied Science, Culinary Nutrition from Johnson & Wales University.

Ben rejoins Bell after starting his career with the company soon after earning his Bachelor of Arts & Restaurant Management from Kendall College. At Bell, Ben held the position of research chef – Savory Applications for two years. He left Bell for California and served as a research and development chef for Basic American Foods. Ben then went on to serve as vice president of product & research as a Founding Member of Food Genius. In this role, Ben was responsible for methodology, design and creation of client deliverables. This included menu, culinary trend mapping, menu item price optimization, product concept development and competitive reviews.

Ben most recently has served as the Principal Scientist with The KraftHeinz Company and has served in roles of progressive development with Dunkin’ Brands. Ben was responsible for all bakery and doughnut related innovation, calendar programs and core improvements as Senior R & D Manager. Ben has led teams, collaborated with strategic partners, been responsible for quality improvement, franchisee profitability optimization, global distribution and regulatory compliance. Ben has also managed a pipeline with 100+ innovative menu items and product platforms for Baskin Robbins.

Harry comes to Bell with recent experience as and Applications Technologist at Sensient and Applications Scientist at Prinova. He has also held positions at SpiceTec, Prinova, and Glanbia in their Quality Control Departments.

Harry also has extensive experience in Culinary Arts while working as sous chef at Prairie Landing Golf Club and Stone Gate Conference Center.

He holds an Associates of Arts from Elgin Community College in Culinary Arts, an Associates of Science in Chemistry and will soon graduate with a Bachelor’s of Science in Food Science from Kansas State University.

Casey joined Bell in 2018 as a research chef. During her short time at Bell, she has been involved with a variety of projects showing an outstanding work ethic and project leadership skills. Casey has four years of culinary arts experience and four years of research and development experience focused in flavor development, ingredient applications and sodium reduction across a large portfolio of products. She received an Associate degree in Culinary Arts and a Bachelor degree in Culinary Science from the Culinary Institute of America.