Pressed Juicery has brought on former Health-Ade CFO Gary Cooperman in a split role leading the refrigerated juice company’s financial and operations teams.
Cooperman, who started as CFO and COO in February, said the brand is “having a moment of sorts” and he has been working to scale the company’s retail and ecommerce business while supporting its brick-and-mortar stores.
Describing himself as “operationally-oriented,” Cooperman sees “tremendous opportunity” in expanding the brand’s retail footprint of over 4,000 doors, including Costco, Albertsons, Kroger and Sprouts Farmers Market.
“The wholesale channel had not previously been a significant focus of the business,” he said. “When I look at the profitability of that business relative to startup beverage brands, we’re doing wildly well. Part of the reason for that is that we have brand awareness [through the stores] and that’s really wind on our backs.”
The company’s two manufacturing facilities in central California — one in Fresno and the other a former Odwalla plant in Geneva, both with capacity to spare — will play a major role in scaling its wholesale business and bringing down costs, Cooperman said.
The challenge is synergizing that operational infrastructure with the needs of a growing grocery retail segment which can be “more unpredictable” with sales forecasting across multiple touchpoints in the supply chain. Unifying Pressed’s portfolio may be one way to improve performance, Cooperman added. Currently, the company has different bottle sizes and product names for its various distributors and retailers.
Innovation is another key focus for Cooperman. He pointed to the success of the plant-based frozen yogurt as giving Pressed “permission to play in other categories that are better-for-you.”
Backed by in-store sales data, Cooperman thinks that the company can expand out of just cold-pressed juices and frozen treats and into categories like supplements or snacks.
“Our [in-store] guests trust us,” he said. “It gives us a lot of confidence that we can certainly bring more products to market that fit into what our consumers want.”
Other Appointments:
- Prebiotic soda brand Olipop has brought in Mike Scavuzzo as the brand’s VP of category management and business insights. Scavuzzo spent the last year and a half as Numerator’s sales director and, before that, led sales teams for Mid-Day Squares, frozen yogurt bar brand Clio and RXBar
- Oatly created a new role within its leadership appointing Christopher Link as its chief customer officer. Link comes to Oatly after over 25 years at Nestlé Waters and, most recently, EVP of retail sales and operations at BlueTriton Brands.
- Jennifer Dodd has been named the new CEO of Main Squeeze Juice Co. Dodd has over 30 years of experience working primarily in franchise restaurants like The Melting Pot and Applebee’s as well as the Dunkin’ and Tim Horton’s coffee chains. Main Squeeze operates over 30 retail locations in the southern half of the U.S.