The most notable of these for the South African market is the appointment of Rob Stevens, currently Foodservice commercial director (South Africa) to managing director (South Africa) with effect from August.

Stevens joined the company in March 2012 and immediately took to his role of driving strong McCain Foods Foodservice growth across South Africa. Although recently tasked with the added responsibility of leading the McCain Foods (SA) Retail team, Stevens has achieved a successful track record in developing winning strategies across foodservice and retail, building strong teams across both divisions and improving process and productivity across the board.

These achievements, together with his intimate working knowledge of the South African marketplace, through previous positions with YUM Africa, where he was responsible for supply chain and innovation, and with Tiger Brands, in which he held various roles of increasing responsibility, including sales and marketing leadership positions, put Stevens in good stead to take up the reigns and lead the McCain Foods South African operation to ever higher levels of sustainable profitability and growth.

Stevens’ promotion follows the appointment of Louis Wolthers, previous managing director of McCain Foods (SA), to the Global McCain Foods leadership team where he will be responsible for the SANZAR (South Africa, Australia and New Zealand) region as Regional President South Africa, Australia/New Zealand. His focus will be on accelerating growth in these high opportunity markets – both changes aimed at aligning global strategies in view of delivering on advanced McCain initiatives which will further consolidate the company’s competitive advantage in the local and international marketplace.