The Very Good Food Company Inc., operating as The Very Good Butcher, announces today that veteran plant-based food production executive, Ana Silva, has departed Daiya, where she served as Chief Financial Officer for five years. Ms Silva will join VGF as president from January 2021.
During Silva’s time with Canadian dairy alternative producer Daiya, the company underwent a CAD$405 million/USD$326 million acquisition by Otsuka Pharmaceuticals, a Japanese pharmaceutical and nutraceutical company. Along with this significant acquisition, Silva oversaw a period where Daiya was ranked as the fastest-growing plant-based food company in America by SPINS.
Silva’s appointment comes at a transformative time, having become publicly listed on both the Canadian and more recently on the US stock exchange. Her role will be to bring online additional production capacity with proposed Rupert and Patterson facilities, and expand R&D capabilities with its Mount Pleasant facility, in order to meet strong demand for the Company’s products. Ana’s experience will also guide the Company as it pursues its efforts to expand into the U.S. and other international markets.
“I’m thrilled about the possibilities in the plant-based food industry, and I believe it will secure our long-term global food supply,” said Silva. “Very Good Food offers three unique assets: The founders are innovative risk-takers with a great vision. The core values and purpose are truly inspiring. And finally, this company is at the early stages of growth, which for me, is an important opportunity to contribute.”
“We are fortunate to have someone of Ana’s caliber and experience joining our team at a critical inflection point for our company, as we are on the verge of scaling our operations by a very substantial margin,” said CEO Mitchell Scott. “With significant capacity expansion and a large waitlist of wholesale accounts, Ana’s previous executive-level experience at Daiya Foods will be an invaluable asset to our team.”