Brandon Witte Email & Phone Number

Naas, IE

Procurement leader for a team of outstanding professionals- developing careers and building a better business. Architecting sourcing strategies and cost savings initiatives across a diverse portfolio of ingredients that drive differentiation in our company’s products. Fruit, vegetables, spices, additives, chemicals and flavors.

Naas, IE

Sourcing and category strategy lead for commodities procurement and price risk management across multiple business segments. Wheat, corn, starches, and sweeteners.

Wayzata, Minnesota, US

• Managed business segment profitability, strategic direction, R&D funnel prioritization, asset capacity utilization, and continuity of customer relationships. Responsible for Cocoa ingredients segment; pricing /.
• Two product lines >$200M annual revenue- produced consistent annual volume growth in a mature and saturated industry segment.
• Revised international supply chain processes; Increased customer retention and fulfillment rate, while reducing inventory by 17%
• Instituted an earnings improvement initiative to reduce cost slippage; >$1M annual savings opportunity identified, captured half of the opportunity in first year, improved earnings 11%.
• Created an education program for the sales teams, focused on the product portfolio, value proposition, features / benefits, and identifying value fits within customers’ business models.
• Conducted customer education sessions to demonstrate new product features and industry insights.

Chicago, IL, US

• Led purchasing and logistics teams for ingredients used in production of food products. Annual spend ~$170M+. Accountable for the sourcing performance and supply chain cost management of globally sourced ingredients.
• Organized team and business processes for purchasing, importing, transportation, and warehousing
• Merged two teams to efficiently combine resources; hiring a new supervisor to lead the combined team
• Led team to establish new procedures to measure materials shrink, organize the data for analysis, and recover losses from suppliers; resulted in $300k annual cost saving.
• Achieved consistent annual savings by expanding sources, increasing competition among suppliers and collaborating with engineering to adopt new ingredients.
• Collaborated with Human Resources HR to create role clarity among team members, segregation of duties, and coaching strategy for colleagues’ professional development

Chicago, IL, US

Managed sales of cocoa ingredients to domestic and international customers. Managed and cultivated vendor relationships, establishing new sources. Traveled internationally to develop new vendor relationships and foreign supply sources- notably Ecuador, Peru, Dominican Republic and Indonesia.

Chicago, IL, US

Ingredient procurement for cocoa business, from suppliers in EU, Africa, Asia and South America. Managed price risk of ingredients, set sales pricing, commodity futures hedging and coordinated manufacturing plans.

Chicago, IL, US

Identified, organized and analyzed logistical cost information. Established data repository to analyze and track freight costs used in sales pricing.

Chicago, IL, US

Sourced commodities for soybean and corn processing factories. Traded grain positions across US markets.