August 11/Food Business Week -- Mark Jansen, has been selected by the Blue Diamond Growers board of directors to replace retiring president and CEO, Doug Youngdahl. Jansen will officially join Blue Diamond on October 4, 2010 and will address the cooperative's grower-owners at their centennial annual meeting at the Sacramento Convention Center on November 18, 2010. Youngdahl will retire at the end of 2010.
Prior to accepting his new position as president and CEO of Blue Diamond, Jansen was president of Schwan's Food Service Inc., a division of the Schwan Food Company, which is a multibillion-dollar family-owned company. It employs 22,000 people in 50 countries worldwide. With headquarters in Marshall, Minn., the company sells frozen foods on its traditional delivery trucks, in grocery-store freezers, online and in the foodservice industry.