Posts
Many of the cranberry farmers who are part of the Ocean Spray cooperative are based in Southeastern Massachusetts. Peter Pereira
Abigail Buckwalter is heading back to the farm.
After 16 years rising through the ranks of Nestlé’s nutritional supplement and pharmaceutical therapy business, Buckwalter has moved from New Jersey to Massachusetts to be the new chief executive of Lakeville-based Ocean Spray Cranberries.
It’s a bit of a full-circle moment for the consumer products executive, who grew up in Iowa and worked summers as a kid, detasseling corn.
Now, Buckwalter rejoins the agriculture world as a seasoned business executive: While Ocean Spray is one of Massachusetts’s best known brands, it’s also a farming cooperative owned by around 700 growers in North America and Chile.
Buckwalter starts on Monday, taking over for Tom Hayes, who retired from the job in March after five years in the role. She’ll lead a 2,000-person company that generates about $2 billion in annual revenue, mostly from its juices and other fruit beverages.
About one-quarter of those people work in Massachusetts, primarily at the Lakeville office or nearby facilities in the state’s cranberry-growing region, along with a 40-person satellite office in Boston’s Seaport.
Like many farmers, cranberry growers are struggling with inflationary and real estate pressures. Buckwalter said she’s looking forward to helping them navigate these challenges. Tops on her to-do list: learning and listening, by meeting with employees and farmers. She hopes to honor Ocean Spray’s century of history, while also pushing it to evolve “in new and relevant ways.”
“I feel the weight of responsibility to our board and to our growers,” Buckwalter said in an interview. “We have to find ways to ... make sure their prosperity continues, generation after generation.”
Buckwalter started at Nestlé Health Science in the group’s marketing division, but eventually took on larger executive tasks, moving up through jobs that took her to offices in Switzerland (Nestlé’s home country) and Australia before returning to in 2021 to work at the US corporate office in New Jersey; she became the US CEO of Nestlé Health Science in 2023, overseeing about 6,000 people.
During her tenure, she worked on a variety of brands — small emerging ones to big blockbusters. Some of the health science group’s best known product lines include Boost, Meritene, Nuun, Nature’s Valley, and Carnation Instant Breakfast.
Now, she’ll just have one brand to focus on.
“It felt like the right moment for me to take my two-plus decades in consumer packaged goods and apply it to a cooperative at Ocean Spray,” Buckwalter said. “It’s an amazing opportunity.”
A mother of three children, Buckwalter said she’s looking forward to settling into the Boston area.
“I’m excited for my kids to go to school here,” Buckwalter said. “Massachusetts is world-renowned for its education and inclusiveness. I love the fact [Boston] is a world-class city but it feels approachable and inviting.”
Jon Chesto can be reached at jon.chesto@globe.com. Follow him @jonchesto.
No comments:
Post a Comment