Janet Helm, MS, RDN has joined FINN Partners as Head of Food and Nutrition Strategy, a newly created role at one of the world's largest independent PR and marketing agencies. The hire places a credentialed nutrition scientist at the center of the agency's food and beverage, agriculture, and culinary travel practice — a meaningful structural shift for food brands evaluating which agency partners can actually move the needle on trust and regulatory credibility.
Why the Hire Signals a Shift
Helm arrives with more than two decades of experience at the crossroads of nutrition science, earned media, and brand strategy. She has advised food brands and agricultural commodity boards on sustainability narratives, stakeholder engagement, and issues management — the precise pressure points that grocery buyers, foodservice operators, and retail category managers are scrutinizing as label transparency and health claims reshape purchasing decisions. Her national media profile — including appearances on Good Morning America, the Today show, and CNN — gives FINN's food clients a strategist who can also serve as a credible on-camera voice during a product launch or a controversy.
For operators and brand teams evaluating agency rosters, this kind of appointment matters. Scientific credibility inside an agency — not just access to a freelance dietitian on retainer — changes what a communications team can deliver. It affects how a brand's nutrition claims are structured for media, how commodity boards frame production stories for a skeptical press, and how culinary travel brands connect cultural authenticity with health-forward messaging. FINN CEO and Founding Managing Partner Peter Finn framed it directly: Helm's depth will bring "a global perspective to the evolving conversations around what we eat, how food is produced and the forces shaping the future of food."
What This Means for F&B Brand Strategy
Food and beverage brands — particularly those navigating GLP-1-adjacent positioning, clean-label mandates, or agricultural sourcing transparency — are under more communications pressure than at any point in the past decade. Agencies that can pair earned media muscle with credentialed nutrition insight are increasingly differentiated from generalist PR shops. FINN's move to formalize that capability in a senior, standalone role suggests the agency is anticipating a sustained client demand for science-to-story translation, not a short-term trend.
Helm is based in Chicago and will work across FINN's global network of 39 offices and more than 1,300 professionals — meaningful scale for food industry organizations and agricultural commodity boards that operate across regional and international markets. Her leadership history with the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics and active membership in Les Dames d'Escoffier also positions FINN within established professional networks that influence food policy, culinary education, and hospitality — sectors tracked closely by the Brand Launch Department and Operator Intelligence beats.
For operators sourcing agency partners or building out their own communications infrastructure, the broader takeaway is practical: the agencies winning food and beverage mandates right now are the ones investing in specialized talent rather than generalist account teams. When a brand's health halo, sourcing story, or sustainability claim faces scrutiny — from a buyer, a journalist, or a regulatory body — having a credentialed strategist in the room, not just a media contact sheet, is what converts a crisis into a trust-building moment.
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.
