Our Story
“If you look at our history, being a vehicle for the greater good has been the ethos of this company.”
– Brian Griffith, Owner and Executive Chairman
Action follows purpose. Collaboration leads to innovation. And more often than not, the future you can envision is the future you can make a reality. This was certainly true in 1919 when Enoch Luther (E.L.) Griffith, a Chicago salesman, and his son Carroll Ladd (C.L.) Griffith, a pharmacologist, took the first bold steps toward improving America’s food industry. The Griffiths’ aim was to introduce food science to the food industry. Why? Because they believed they could improve food safety while creating healthier, better-tasting food.
Fast forward four generations and a century later, it’s the same purpose-driven approach that continues to guide Griffith Foods today, and for the next 100 years
Our Founding
At a time when the nation’s food supply couldn’t be trusted, Enoch Luther (E.L.) Griffith and Carroll Ladd (C.L.) Griffith recognised the need to introduce food science to the food industry through personal customer relationships. Thus began the storefront start of the company at 429 W. 79th Street in Chicago.
North American Growth
On May 14, 1929, Griffith’s first company outside of the United States was established in Toronto under the leadership of E.L. Griffith’s nephews, Maurice and Luther Rector. Griffith introduces specialty flours, liquid seasonings, and imports German Prague Salt, which dramatically reduced the required curing times for ham, bacon, and sausage.
Product Development
Working to create safer, healthier and better-tasting food, Griffith utilised innovative technologies and processes to enhance the taste and safety of food products while reducing cost and speeding up production – developing Prague Powder “The Safe Fast Cure”, hydrolysed vegetable protein, an essential and affordable building block of flavour, antioxidant seasonings and more.
Going Global
Then, as now, Griffith grew by helping its customers grow – expanding its product line and services with ingredients and technology made to assure dependable flavour, texture, and quality. E.L.’s grandson, Dean L. Griffith joins the company and pioneers a global spirit to adapt and meet the needs of the cultures we serve.
Increasing Innovation
Following new operations in South America, Europe, and Asia in the 1960s and 1970s, Dean Griffith restructured the company in 1978 to preserve its global footprint. Further pushes for improvement involved collaboration between culinary teams and food scientists, allowing Griffith to expand within the food industry.
Unit Paks offer processors and foodservice operations optimised batching and back-of-house efficiencies. Griffith Foods introduces HVP flavour extensions, Flavour Glaze for BBQ, authentic liquid blends, and unique coating systems with increased durability and functionality in baked and fried applications.
Opening our office in Herentals, Belgium
Opening our office in Derbyshire, United Kingdom
Purposeful Evolution
By acquiring new companies, creating a new division, and further developing its core capabilities, the company blended together diverse approaches and points of view to help customers grow. Griffith acquired Custom Culinary® in 1991 to expand its soup, base, sauce, and gravy offerings, then launched its Innova®Flavors division in 1997, which greatly diversified its catalog of customisable natural flavourings, pastes, and marinades.
Two new, state-of-the-art Culinary Centers are opened at the Alsip headquarters and in Europe to provide customers with additional product development resources. Custom Culinary® is acquired and Innova®, a manufacturer of savoury flavours, is established. New facilities are built in Brazil, Southern China, and South Korea.
Opening our office in Valls, Spain
Built for Success
Griffith’s sustainability platform has been a key driver of change looking toward the future.
By following the four strategic thrusts – shared value, leverage technology, partner ecosystems, and health and nutrition – a positive impact has been made through endeavors like the Griffith Sustainably Sourced (GSS) program and clean-label products. These initiatives are both a validation of Griffith Foods’ past successes and an essential step in our continuing push to blend care and creativity to nourish the world.
Griffith Foods acquires a liquids facility focused on the production of sauces and soups. New manufacturing units are built in Mexico, India, and Northern China. Additional culinary centers are constructed within targeted facilities throughout the world. In 2019, the company launches TEROVA™, a supplier of sustainably sourced and superior spices, herbs, botanicals, and innovative ingredients, in order to scale sustainable sourcing efforts.
A New Era
Today, the world is Griffith Foods’ market. Its central pursuit builds on its legacy of blending care and creativity to nourish the world. Countless global partners rely on the company for seasonings, spices, coatings, sauces, and more, while its sustainability efforts support local and regional food ecosystems around the world.
Our Values
Born from our purpose, our values are at the heart of everything we do.
Make the Future Better
We are optimistic and courageous while making choices in pursuit of our dreams. Sustainability informs our curiosity, imagination, and innovation. We are passionate about leaving our planet a better place for future generations. We believe the best is yet to come.
Work Together Globally
We recognise our diversity creates a unique strength, and we learn from our colleagues and partners globally. By collaborating, communicating, sharing, and learning, we create better together.
Behave like Owners
We are passionate about creating long-term value. We believe that we are part of something bigger than ourselves and strive to make a difference. We trust each other and treat talent as a valuable resource. We believe in strategic risk-taking and in doing the right thing, especially when it is hard to do.
Build Customer Success
Recognising that our success depends on our customers’ success, we work to create value and ensure success by understanding, anticipating and prioritising customer needs. We build a mutual commitment to derive sustainable long-term value.
Deliver Results
We take personal responsibility for meeting our commitments. We are focused on achieving objectives aligned to our triple bottom line of people, planet, and performance. We execute with excellence, measure results, and reward success.
Act like Family
We are a caring family company where everyone has the opportunity to grow, follow their own personal “Purpose” and find fulfillment in their work. We support each other and demonstrate mutual respect. We nourish people’s well-being – physical, mental, and financial.
Our Family of Companies
Griffith Foods is a global product development partner specialising in food ingredients from seasoning and sauces to breadings, coatings, flavours, bakery products, and more.
Custom Culinary® specialises in providing foodservice and food processing professionals with real, authentic branded and proprietary culinary flavour systems.
TEROVA serves modern society with premium, sustainable ingredients, and products grown with a farmer first approach and full traceability.
Nourish Ventures is a strategic partner to new ventures, accelerating their ability to scale and grow, focused on creating the food system of the future – delicious, nutritious, sustainable.
Joint Ventures
Join Our Family
With 750 employees across Europe, representing 43 countries, our workforce needs to reflect the diversity of the communities where we (globally) operate. With a career at Griffith Foods, your diverse viewpoints, experiences, and backgrounds can connect to something greater. That also means feeling welcome, valued, and heard.
At Griffith Foods you can bring your purpose to life, you can create new opportunities for you to grow, develop, and make an impact on the sustainable future of our business and the world around us.
Discover how your work can nourish the world and help you succeed in your career while working together.
Our Leadership
We believe in inspiring leadership. Connected by a shared purpose, our leaders are committed to the well-being of every Griffith Foods employee and ready to share their knowledge and experience. They are maintaining responsible stewardship of the People, Planet, and Performance.
Brian Griffith
Executive ChairmanBrian Griffith is the Executive Chairman of Griffith Foods, marking the fourth generation of his family to lead the company. Griffith Foods is a purpose-driven, family-owned global developer and maker of customized food recipes for food service restaurants, protein and snack companies. Griffith Foods has a unique combination of capabilities in the form of Insights, Culinary, Food, and Sensory Science that translate into some of the world’s most loved seasoning, coating and sauce recipes blended to exacting specifications that are culturally authentic and taste great. Founded in 1919, Griffith has grown and expanded globally to include a presence in over thirty countries.
Brian has a deep and fundamental belief in “business as a force for good” and therefore organized the company to drive further impact through Griffith’s Triple Bottom-line sustainability platform of People, Planet & Performance across all business units worldwide. Our Purpose at Griffith Foods is “We Blend Care and Creativity to Nourish the World….which means as a purpose-powered organization, we are focused on the integration of their Purpose, Values and Sustainability platform actioned through strategy & innovation to deliver positive change and impact that is good for people (all stakeholders) and the planet.
We play at the intersection of Sustainable Agricultural Systems and Health & Nutrition…”Better for You, Better for the Planet.”
TC Chatterjee
Chief Executive OfficerTC Chatterjee was named Chief Executive Officer in 2016. Before becoming CEO, TC held positions as Chief Operating Officer, as well as Group President across some of Griffith’s fastest-growing regions, including Central and South America, Asia Pacific, and India – Middle East, as well as Custom Culinary, Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Griffith Foods™.
“Griffith’s global footprint and our ability to add value to our customers and their customers through our expertise and experience in food science, culinary arts, sensory and consumer insight help us offer a range of capabilities to enable our customers’ growth and innovation. We are proud of our ability to provide these locally as well as globally.”
Filip De Reymaeker
President, EuropeFilip is an entrepreneurial and business builder with a proven track record of driving strong profitable growth in the food and beverage industry across four continents. In addition to his successful progressive leadership roles in commercial operations and general management, Filip has strong passion for innovation and sustainability which is invaluable in leading the European organization on the next steps of our journey toward our 2030 Aspirations, in service of our Purpose.
Joanne Smith
Vice President Human Resources EuropeExperienced International Human Resources Leader with significant expertise in all areas of HR. Focused on driving People initiatives and execution to deliver Business Strategy. Achieving organisational excellence through Talent Management & People strategies striving towards becoming an employer of choice. Strong advocate on bringing the People agenda to Senior Leadership teams enabling execution of strategy in the key areas of Talent , Development , Organisation & Culture.
Arnaud Le Guen
Vice President Sustainability EuropeArnaud Le Guen is Vice President of Purchasing & Quality for Griffith Foods Europe & Africa. He is also responsible for the Griffith Foods Europe Sustainability platform.
In his 7 years at Griffith and his 20+ year career in the food industry, Arnaud has been fully focused on purchasing and quality; developing supply chain tools and building high performing teams in multicultural environment.
He is passionate about and convinced that Sustainability is the main driving force to unlock innovation and address social and environmental issues complementing the Griffith Foods ethos to provide ‘delicious, nutritious and sustainable’ food.
Arnaud is dedicated to creating positive changes within the food industry and believes this is possible through multiple collaborations and relationships with the aim of achieving carbon neutrality and a circular economy, both of which drive performance and assure quality products for all our Griffith customers.
Having lived and worked in the USA for several years, he holds an MBA from Texas A&M International University USA
Matthew Cutts
Vice President of Research & Development EuropeMatt has broad, end to end knowledge of R&D and Quality and Food Safety. With 20+ years’ experience with Mars Incorporated having lived and worked in Europe and Australia, Matt has worked across multiple cultures and categories, building diverse teams to create successful product experiences, delivering value to both consumers and customers.
He understands a wide range of food technologies and emerging consumer trends, with a track record that transforms concepts into outstanding products. Recent roles included leading a Global R&D and Innovation function, delivering a five-year global strategy for Mars Food to create the next generation of healthy meals.
Dirk Oyen
Vice President Business Development EuropeDirk is an experienced professional with a strong track record of driving business growth and identifying new opportunities in the food and beverage industry. He has held senior leadership positions at multinational companies like Cargill and ADM, and has a proven ability to understand market dynamics and guide commercial organizations to achieve targets in a global context.
As Vice President of Business Development at Griffith Foods, Dirk is responsible for identifying new opportunities and developing strategies to guide the commercial organization toward achieving its targets. With his international experience, cultural diversity, and passion for innovation and sustainability, he is well-positioned to lead the company’s growth and expansion efforts, and to help achieve its purpose of blending care & creativity to nourish the world.
Thomas Verrooten
General Manager Continental EuropeThomas Verrooten is the General Manager of Griffith Foods North and East Europe. He is an experienced director in international sales and general management, previously spending 12 years at Barry Callebaut. Thomas is skilled in food, chocolate, sales, team management, marketing, and key account management and is a board member for Friedewald Confectionary. He attended the University of Ghent and speaks Dutch, English, French, and German.
Jarnail Sani
General Manager UK & IrelandJarnail Sani is the General Manager of Griffith Foods UK & Ireland. Previously, he spent eight years in operations at Adamsfoods. Jarnail is a qualified, enthusiastic, and highly self-motivated General Manager with a proven track record for people management, innovation, continuous improvement, and achieving sustainable change successfully, founded on his comprehensive experience within a fast-moving consumer goods environment. He has achieved a keen business focus through goal-oriented management control that’s gleaned from a strong manufacturing, financial, quality, and commercial understanding, as well as persistence and determination to fulfill challenging objectives.
Christos Skamagkis
Head of Finance EuropeChristos has extensive experience in agribusiness and food. Prior to Griffith Foods, he served as Interim CFO at Al Dahra, a company specialising in agribusiness and food security, where he held various finance leadership roles in Europe, the US, and the Middle East. Before that he worked for Cargill, the commodity trader and food manufacturer, leading finance functions across the global animal nutrition organisation.
He is a qualified management accountant with a master’s degree from the Manchester Business School in the UK.
Christos enjoys helping teams achieve their full potential while serving customers in a way that is safe for our people and sustainable for the environment.
Lucy Smart
Head of PurchasingLucy Smart is an accomplished procurement leader with over 16 years of experience, specialising in strategic sourcing. Throughout her career, she has successfully led procurement initiatives across Europe, driving cost efficiencies and building strong supplier partnerships for leading organisations.
A passionate advocate for sustainable sourcing, Lucy is dedicated to advancing Griffith Foods’ sustainability goals and integrating them with impactful procurement strategies. She actively engages with internal and external stakeholders to share Griffith Foods’ sustainability ambitions and achievements, raising awareness, and creating opportunities for collaboration and partnerships. Lucy is committed to driving positive change in the food industry by advancing responsible and sustainable procurement practices.
Mark Dean
IT Director EuropeMark is an accomplished technology leader with extensive experience across diverse sectors, including service management and value delivery at the point of consumption. He has a proven track record of success in leading technology services for globally recognised organisations such as HP, Specsavers (Louis Nielsen), and Finlays, spanning industries like technology, healthcare, and food & beverages.
Currently spearheading the global technology team in Europe, Mark focuses on maximizing returns on technology investments while aligning them with the strategic aspirations of the business.
Partnerships and Ecosystem
