Raman Ahuja has announced that he is moving on from his role as vice-president and business head of fresh foods at Fieldfresh Foods, a joint venture between Bharti Enterprises and Del Monte Pacific.
Ahuja will leave Fieldfresh on 4 November to join international perfumes and flavours company Firmenich as head of the group’s flavours business in South Asia.
After facing some challenging years following its launch in 2004, Fieldfresh has begun to make headway in India’s fresh produce business. The corporate has forged linkages with Indian farmers to supply products such as baby corn and sweet corn to export markets as well as to domestic retailers, and Ahuja has played a key role in that success.
“Over the past six year years, I’ve been part of a great start up journey where we’ve been able to build a sustainable, professionally managed fresh produce business from India,” he told Fruitnet.com. “We are successfully exporting products to the EU and are now considered a reliable source, a tag that was hitherto not used for Indian suppliers.”
Ahuja added that the systems and infrastructure are now in place for Fieldfresh to flourish as a business in his absence. “The stage is set for delivering huge growth and the business has a management team that will take it to the next level,” he said.
While the search to find a replacement for Ahuja is underway, a successor has not yet been identified.
Meanwhile, Fieldfresh continues to diversify its business and last week launched a range of frozen vegetables in the Indian market, a sector that is growing at an annual rate of 20 per cent, according to Ahuja.
