Thought Leaders Breakfast Panel

Said Belhassan has been part of Ahold/Albert
Heijn’s management team for 20 years. His experiences have taken him from being a store manager to category manager for various food and non-food items and onto his current position as Senior Director Produce & Floral.

His knowledge of the various aspects of retailing gives Said a unique perspective on ways the produce and floral industry can maximize sales to consumers, and he is currently working on repositioning Albert Heijn’s produce departments to do just that. Current plans are in the works to overhaul most of the Albert Heijn produce departments this year and finishing in 2017, and Said’s love for the global and local nature of the produce industry will be seen in each store. 

Said has a Masters Degree in Food Management from EFMI Business School.   

Andrei Durnescu is the commercial director of Dalimarcom, based in Chisinau, Moldova. He imports fresh produce for the country’s leading retail chains, specialising in product from Spain, Holland, Turkey, Italy, Greece, South Africa, Egypt and Israel, as well as exports to retail and wholesale customers in Romania, Russia, Egypt, Iraq and Turkey.

Dalimarcom supplies its customers direct from growers’ facilities and works constantly to improve the logistics chain to add value and provide a consistently high quality product.

Natalia has worked in food import industry in Romania since 2006, dealing with fish, fruits and vegetables, and has headed up the import division of Karema Fruct for the last 18 months.

Karema Fruct was founded in 2011 by a team of 3 brothers who have now been working in the fresh produce business for 19 years, principally importing fruit and vegetables for the major Romanian supermarket chains.

John L. Stanton has a Ph.D. in Quantitative Methods and Marketing from Syracuse University, and has been in the food industry for over 30 years. Besides academia, Dr. Stanton has held executive positions and conducted extensive consulting work globally for leading national and multinational food companies on both the supplier and retailer side.

Dr. Stanton has run ground-breaking seminars at food associations across the globe and also worked with many commodity agriculture groups.  Dr.  Stanton is widely published, including two new books Winning Marketing Strategy and Precision Target Marketing. Dr. Stanton is currently the editor of the Journal of Food Products Marketing, and an editorial advisor of the British Food Journal.

Markon is a purchasing, marketing, and logistics cooperative serving North America’s leading independent foodservice distributors. It distributes produce to more than 70 facilities in the U.S. and Canada.

Tim has nearly 40 years’ experience in the produce and foodservice industries. He began his career in 1977 at H. Hall & Company, a grower/shipper of strawberries and mixed vegetables. He joined Markon in 1985 as purchasing director, and was named president in 1990. His numerous industry positions include chairman of Produce Marketing Association’s Foodservice Division (1994-1996), and chairman of the Produce Marketing Association (2002-2003), and member, USDA Fruit and Vegetable Advisory Council. He is currently on the Canadian Produce Marketing Association’s board of directors.

Tim was instrumental in bringing buyers and sellers together in 1996 to address the food safety crisis and in the formation of the Center for Produce Safety, which he chaired from 2007-2012. He remains involved in several multi-stakeholder collaboratives working on food safety, food waste, sustainability, and environmental protections.