UK – Arla Foods has appointed its current SVP – Sales for Arla Foods, Ash Amirahmadi as new management director for UK effective 1 July 2018.

He succeeds Tomas Pietrangeli, who is leaving the company to become CEO of Danish retail group Dagrofa A/S as from 30 June 2018.

Ash Amirahmadi joined Arla Foods in 2004 from Unilever and has held a number of leadership roles across the business.

As SVP – Sales, a position he was appointed to in 2016, he was responsible for the company’s 120 strong Commercial Team, all UK customer relationships and global lead for Walmart and Tesco.

Under his leadership, the company realised sales growth of circa US$232 million and 9% growth in the company’s branded portfolio.

Prior to his current role, he was Vice President of Milk, Members and Trading for five years, working closely with the co-operative’s 2,400 UK farmer owners, growing the company’s local milk supply from 1.6 billion litres to over 3.5 billion litres and overseeing the merger of Arla with Milk Link in 2012, which brought 1,300 UK dairy farmers into the co-operative.

Commenting on this appointment, Arla Foods Executive Vice President for Europe, Peter Gioertz-Carlsen said, “We would like to thank Tomas for his service to Arla Foods and the great work he has done with his team to build on our strong category positions in the UK and accelerate the growth of our Lurpak, Anchor, Arla and Castello brands.

Tomas has also played an important role in helping to represent the UK Dairy Industry, ensuring that politicians and our many other stakeholders fully understand what is necessary to maintain a strong dairy farming sector in the UK post Brexit. We wish him well in his new role.”

He added that Ash had been at the heart of the transformation of our UK business over the last decade and has a deep understanding of the UK dairy sector and the consumer and retail trends which are providing its growth opportunities.

According to him, Ash has led the development of their category growth strategies while fostering the growing impact of farmer producer groups, who work closely with customers, engaging shoppers and consumers in the provenance and quality.