Finlays Solutions, the Glenview, Illinois-based global B2B beverage ingredient supplier, has added two senior foodservice executives to its advisory board — a signal that the company is moving deliberately to commercialize the expanded manufacturing platform it built through its 2025 Leahy-IFP integration.
Kristin Bird, president of food service at The Marzetti Company, and Trevor Bynum, former president and CEO of Welch Foods, join founding Independent Non-Executive Director Jennifer Aspen Mason on the board. Bird brings more than 25 years of foodservice channel experience, including senior roles at Tyson Foods, Hillshire Brands, Sara Lee, and Unilever. Bynum led a multi-year turnaround at Welch Foods and has deep M&A integration and go-to-market experience from stints at Schwan's, WhiteWave Foods, and General Mills.
What the Leahy-IFP Deal Changed
The 2025 acquisition of Leahy-IFP was the strategic pivot that makes these appointments meaningful for operators. The deal doubled Finlays Solutions' North American footprint and added high-tech aseptic manufacturing alongside fruit-based beverage production — capabilities that position the company to compete for fast-growing operator segments like Refreshers-style beverages and ready-to-use beverage bases. Aseptic manufacturing in particular is a procurement category where large foodservice operators and national chain buyers are increasingly active, as they seek shelf-stable, scalable ingredient solutions that reduce kitchen labor and simplify supply chains.
Darnell Ross, CEO of Finlays Solutions, framed the board expansion as a deliberate move to support the company's next growth phase: bringing tea, coffee, fruit-based beverages, botanicals, and aseptic manufacturing under a single commercial roof is an uncommon combination at scale, and advisory board depth is one way to pressure-test the go-to-market approach before it gets in front of major chain and retail buyers.
What This Signals for Buyers and Suppliers
For procurement teams and beverage category managers at restaurant groups, hotel brands, and contract foodservice operators, the Finlays Solutions board move is worth tracking for two reasons. First, it suggests the company is preparing a more aggressive foodservice sales push — adding operators with Bird's channel-strategy credentials and Bynum's cooperative and retail-brand experience is not a passive governance exercise. Second, the advisory structure itself reflects a broader trend among mid-market ingredient suppliers: building external credibility through independent directors as a way to win trust with enterprise-level buyers who conduct more rigorous vendor due diligence than they did five years ago.
The natural and better-for-you beverage ingredient space is crowded with suppliers chasing the same chain accounts. Operators evaluating B2B beverage partners for customized tea, botanical, or fruit-based programs should factor in whether a supplier has the manufacturing redundancy and category depth to support multi-SKU, multi-format programs — exactly the capability profile Finlays Solutions is now emphasizing. For more on how ingredient suppliers are positioning for enterprise-level operator contracts, see our coverage in Operator Intelligence and related procurement trends in the Marketplace section.
Key Takeaways for Operators
Written by Michael Politz, Author of Guide to Restaurant Success: The Proven Process for Starting Any Restaurant Business From Scratch to Success (ISBN: 978-1-119-66896-1), Founder of Food & Beverage Magazine, the leading online magazine and resource in the industry. Designer of the Bluetooth logo and recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine's "Top 40 Under 40" for founding American Wholesale Floral, Politz is also the Co-founder of the Proof Awards and the CPG Awards and a partner in numerous consumer brands across the food and beverage sector.
