Framing The Search Assignment
Position: Vice President, Value Added Operations
Client: A family-owned fresh produce company with a 100-year legacy and vertically integrated, national growing and processing footprint.
The Challenge
3P Partners was engaged to recruit a Vice President of Value Added Operations to lead a multi-site fresh-cut produce network for a family-owned agribusiness in California. The company has a long history in fresh vegetables and has steadily expanded into fresh-cut and value-added products to meet customer demand for convenient, ready-to-eat solutions.
The immediate challenge was to identify an operations leader who could unify and scale value-added processing across multiple facilities while preserving the company’s strong food safety culture and integrated supply model. The successful candidate needed experience leading diverse teams and implementing automation, capital planning, and Lean programs in both established and evolving plants.
Key deliverables:
- Building and executing a strategic business plan to align the value-added network with the company’s long-term growth strategy.
- Formalizing a KPI-driven operating model that integrates processing, harvesting, packaging, quality, and supply chain across national operations.
- Accelerating automation initiatives through a structured approach to capital projects and continuous improvement.
- Designing a scalable, standardized value-added model that could support internal growth and future co-pack partnerships.
The role required a hands-on, data-driven leader with multi-site experience in food manufacturing who could elevate cost and efficiency discipline while maintaining high employee engagement.
The Solution
3P Partners launched a targeted search across fresh-cut produce, refrigerated foods, and other complex food processing operations, with particular emphasis on leaders who had scaled plants through automation and Lean practices to support rapid growth. We prioritized ops leaders with P&L accountability, multi-plant oversight, and a track record of moving from manual or semi-automated environments to more standardized, metrics-driven operations.
The selected candidate brought extensive experience leading operations for refrigerated and fresh food manufacturers, including multi-site networks supporting national retail and direct-to-consumer channels. He had repeatedly been hired to build or transform value-added and ready-to-eat operations, often in owner- or family-led environments where cultural alignment and change management were critical.
What set him apart:
- Experience leading complex automation projects that materially improved cost and quality metrics, evidenced by his work in his most recent role.
- Track record of scaling multi-site food operations to support aggressive growth, including launching and stabilizing new manufacturing and fulfillment facilities while implementing Lean practices that drove multi-million-dollar cost reductions and double-digit efficiency gains.
- Successful leadership of large, cross-functional teams spanning operations, engineering, logistics, supply chain, food safety, and operational excellence.
- Down-to-earth, candid communication style that resonates in family-owned environments.
The 3P Difference
3P Partners worked closely with the client to clarify the mix of manufacturing, automation, and leadership experience needed for the role. We spent time understanding the strengths of the current operations as well as gaps in automation, project management, and cross-functional collaboration.
We targeted ops leaders from fresh-cut produce and other complex food businesses who had led multi-site operations, implemented Lean practices, and executed automation projects tied to clear ROI. Throughout the process, we provided structured candidate summaries highlighting each candidate’s P&L ownership, automation and capital project experience, multi-site leadership, and approach to culture and change, giving the client a clear view of tradeoffs between qualified finalists.
The Results
The selected candidate not only met the technical requirements of the role, but also aligned with the company’s family-oriented, collaborative culture. His experience owning large operations budgets, leading automation and Lean initiatives, and scaling multi-site food operations positioned him to advance the company’s value-added growth plans.
If your company is planning to scale its operations, 3P Partners can help you identify the right leadership. Connect with our team to discuss how we can support your next critical hire.