Business Unit Manager Food and Beverage Ingredients

Our client VanRijsingenGreen is seeking a driven and resilient leader to head and grow their ingredients business unit. This pivotal role involves commercial leadership for a business unit specialising in (specialty) vegetable and fruit-based ingredients such as juices, concentrates, fibres, and purees for a broad range of food and beverage applications, from sweet to savoury.

You will spearhead the commercial development of the business unit, building strong customer relationships, driving sales growth, and collaborating closely with operational, sourcing and commercial teams to improve reliability and performance.

The ideal candidate combines a strong commercial mindset with a solid understanding of process industry dynamics and food ingredients, ready to take on the challenge of professionalising our current operation into a commercially successful and trusted partner in the sustainable food and beverage ingredients industry.

Key Responsibilities

• Business Unit Leadership: Driving commercial success while ensuring operational reliability and continuous improvement within the production facility.
• Strategic Market Positioning: Position the business unit as a specialist in food and beverage ingredients such as vegetable and fruit juices, concentrates, purees, fibres, and related products, leveraging deep industry knowledge to influence and expand the customer base.
• Strategy development: Together with senior management, determines targets for the 3- to 5-year plan.
• Commercial Development: Lead proactive business development efforts by identifying and engaging new customers, exploring market opportunities, and co-creating innovative ingredient solutions with clients.
• Customer Relationship Management: Build and maintain strong, trust-based relationships with key clients, including internal stakeholders, ensuring alignment and collaboration on strategic, tactical, and operational levels.
• Operational Collaboration: Work closely internally with the production, sourcing and quality teams, including the technical business developer and operations manager, to optimise processes, resolve legacy issues, and guarantee product quality and delivery reliability.
• Supply Chain Collaboration: Work closely with Supply Chain partners (including sister companies within the Van Rijsingen Green Group) to ensure optimal results in customer satisfaction, lowest costs and zero-waste.
• Stakeholder management: Connect with key internal/external stakeholders to build strong cross-functional collaboration, ensuring the full potential of our company, resources, and vegetable products is realised — with everyone in the chain aligned to consistently deliver the high quality we promise to our customers.

Requirements

• Proven Commercial Experience: Minimum 5 years of experience in a commercial role within the B2B food and beverage ingredients industry, with a strong track record of driving business growth. Business-to-business experience is a must.
• Strong Commercial Acumen: Demonstrated ability to develop and execute business development strategies, build and maintain strategic customer relationships, and manage P&L responsibility.
• Industry Expertise: Deep knowledge of food ingredients such as fibres, fruit and vegetable juices, concentrates, purees, and related products is ideal; otherwise, a mix of functional or speciality food & beverage ingredients is acceptable.
• Preferably with experience in process-driven production environments.
• Technical and Operational Affinity: Understanding of production processes, supply chain dynamics and quality management within a manufacturing setting, enabling effective collaboration with operational teams.
• An inspiring, decisive, entrepreneurial personality with the stamina to lead a scale-up business.
• Communication Skills: Excellent negotiation and interpersonal skills, with the ability to engage confidently with customers, internal teams, and senior management.
• Language Requirements: Proficiency in English is essential; proficiency in Dutch is preferred but not mandatory, provided the candidate demonstrates strong commercial and leadership capabilities.
• Location: Helmond, the Netherlands.
• Travel: +/- 25%.

Benefits

Why Join?

• Comprehensive Support: We provide comprehensive backing with high-quality products, reputable suppliers, and the operational infrastructure necessary for success.
• Autonomy & Growth: Opportunity to independently drive a broad and expanding territory.
• If you are a driven and resilient leader with a strong commercial focus and a passion for the food and beverage ingredients industry, we encourage you to apply. This is a unique opportunity to lead a growing business unit within a company, where your leadership and strategic vision will have a direct impact on its success. If you thrive in a challenging environment and are eager to build lasting customer relationships while driving operational excellence, we look forward to receiving your application.