Blount’s Robin Leatherwood Becomes Director of Tech Services

Blount Fine Foods, a Fall River, Mass.-based manufacturer of premium soups, entrées and side dishes for retail and foodservice, has promoted Robin Leatherwood to the position of director of technical services.

In her new role, Leatherwood will provide regulatory, food safety and labeling support to the company’s culinary and R&D functions. Her previous position was manager of technical services.

“A rising star in the industry, Robin Leatherwood is perhaps Blount’s most important advocate for clean labels and consumer transparency,” said William Bigelow, the company's chief innovation officer, to whom she reports. “During Robin’s seven-year tenure here at Blount, she has led the way in first establishing and then expanding what is today a robust and valuable technical services function within our culinary and R&D teams.”

Under Leatherwood’s leadership, Blount’s technical services team is responsible for the scientific portion of the research and development process, providing the information and insight necessary to effectively and accurately design and label products for food safety and regulatory compliance. Her team also handles the scientific portion of the research and development process.

Further, Leatherwood works closely with Blount’s sales and marketing teams to support customers’ needs throughout the sales and product lifecycle management processes. She will continue to oversee these areas as director of technical services, while adding the responsibility of leading Blount’s packaging innovation and new product commercialization process.

Leatherwood was recognized as a Rising Star in Progressive Grocer’s 2018 Top Women in Grocery program and received Blount’s 2017 Clearly Innovative award, among other recent industry honors.