Antony Hand, a former vice president of marketing at Clearon, was appointed as the president of Gadot Bio-Chem USA Ltd. His responsibilities focus on service to the food industry in North America, specifically the functional food market.

“We are especially pleased to welcome Hand to his new position. He has wide experience in business-development strategy,” says Ronny Hacham, vice president of Business Development & Marketing at Gadot. “He will be contributing to the planning and execution of Gadot’s strategy for the North American market.”

Gadot is forecast to significantly increase its activities in the food sector in general and in the health food sector in particular. Pharmline was active in the dietary supplements segment. Now, under Gadot’s management, it is expected to penetrate the health food market. Gadot already is poised to market additional citric acid and sodium citrates to be produced in its new plant currently being built in China.

“Our strategy is to offer food and beverage producers an extensive line of functional ingredients and processing services through the Pharmline portfolio,” explains Hacham. “These actions will help expand the company's competitive edge in the functional foods market, and will shorten time-to-market while offering next-generation healthy ingredients.”

These new efforts, together with its line of highly biovailable minerals, fructose and other citrates currently produced in Israel, will allow Gadot to broaden its portfolio of products and services for food and beverage fortification.

“Jim Stewart & Co., Gadot's representative in the North American market, will maintain its role and remain an important part of the new North American marketing activities,” adds Hacham.

From the August 27, 2007, Prepared Foods e-Flash