Barry Callebaut's new CEO comes from Unilever

Take charge on 1 October

Antoine de Saint-Affrique will become chocolate company Barry Callebaut’s CEO on 1 October. The 50-year old French citizen has an impressive food industry career already: he is the incumbent CEO of Unilever Foods and is also part of Unilever’s board of directors.

Alongside Foodservice Division and the newly-formed Baking, Cooking and Spreading division, Unilever Foods generates a 12.4 billion euro turnover in 8 different regions. Antoine de Saint-Affrique is also Essilor‘s non-executive director, a company with global appeal regarding corrective glasses. Plenty of experience on his resume at least.

Juergen Steinemann, Callebaut’s CEO since 2009, has helped develop the company into one of the fastest-growing food companies over the past few years. He even acquired American Almond a few days ago, a company that creates nut-based food with a 2014 turnover of 14.2 million euro. That deal may have been his final act as CEO.

Barry Callebaut has a large chocolate factory in Wieze (Eastern Flanders, Belgium), but its main office is located in Zurich, Switzerland. The group had a 5.9 billion Swiss francs (4.8 billion euro) turnover in its fiscal year 2013/2014.