Organizational Changes at Chiquita

NEW YORK - Oct 4/06 - SNS -- Chiquita Brands International, Inc. is making several organizational changes as part of its effort to "foster further innovation and growth in its key product segments, bananas and value-added salads, as well as leverage cold-chain management as a core global capability."

The company has named Jeff Filliater and Scott Komar to newly created global product leader positions. Filliater becomes vice president, global strategies for bananas, reporting to Bob Kistinger, president and chief operating officer of Chiquita Fresh, and Komar becomes vice president, global strategies for salads, reporting to Tanios Viviani, president of Fresh Express.

As Filliater moves into his new role, Richard M. Continelli, a veteran with nearly 25 years of experience in the consumer packaged goods arena, has been hired as president of Chiquita Fresh North America, reporting to Kistinger. In this role, Continelli will be responsible for profitability and all operations of the Chiquita Fresh business in the North American market.

As part of the company's strategic emphasis on excelling in cold-chain management, Waheed Zaman, senior vice president, global supply chain organization and procurement, will focus full time on leading the company's global supply chain. Previously, Zaman had served as CIO in addition to his supply chain responsibilities.

Zaman's initial priorities include achieving in-market transportation and logistics efficiencies, creating a comprehensive network capacity plan and supporting co-manufacturing initiatives, focusing first on combining some supply chain activities that are conducted separately today in the North American market, later to expand to other geographies.

As a result of Zaman's focus on the global supply chain, Manjit Singh, who joined the company in April as vice president, corporate information technology, has been promoted to chief information officer. In his new role, Singh will serve on the company's management committee, reporting to Aguirre, and be responsible for all facets of Chiquita's global commercial and innovations systems, infrastructure and applications services, master planning and architecture, web applications and information delivery.