“Pam’s principal responsibilities involve strengthening MGP’s presence among existing and prospective customers through direct interaction and by demonstrating how our ingredients can uniquely add value to their products by way of enhanced nutritional, sensory and functional qualities,” said Dave Szebalskie, regional sales director.  “She will perform an essential role in helping identify customer needs and developing key account relationships, as well as go-to-market strategies.  With her extensive sales and food science background and in depth knowledge of the food industry, Pam is ideal for this role.  As such, we feel very fortunate for the opportunity to welcome her to our company.”

Since February 2011, Dickerson had been employed by Kerry Ingredients & Flavours, Beloit, Wisc. She began there as account manager for store brands in the eastern U.S., where she developed private brand assortments with retailers.  In May 2012, she was named account manager for Kerry’s bakery ingredients, with responsibility for selling value-added solutions across the company’s ingredient technologies in an assigned territory.

From 2006 to 2011, Dickerson served as process leader for food product development with the Target Corporation in Minneapolis. In this capacity, she was responsible for managing the vendor-based development of Target’s private label food products, including creating prototypes, conducting sensory evaluations and quality attribute assessments, leading product team evaluations and providing technical guidance to vendors.  For four years prior to that, she was a sales representative for Gregg and Associates, Inc., a food ingredient brokerage business located in Excelsior, Minn.

Dickerson began her professional career with General Mills Inc., where, following a summer internship, she started as a food scientist in the company’s Snacks Unlimited Division in 1996.  In 1998, she became a research food scientist for both that division and General Mills’ Big “G” Division, collaborating with marketing personnel to create new snack concepts while also leading efforts to identify new snack business opportunities, as well as flavor development projects for several product improvement initiatives.  She was promoted to senior scientist I for the Big “G” Division in 2000 and made responsible for developing prototypes for new cereal product concepts and line extensions.  She also provided technical leadership on cross-functional project teams and managed flavor development efforts for new product ideas.