Ishida Europe recently announced the creation of two extended sub-regions covering South-West Europe and North-East Europe, part of a wider transformation enabling Ishida to enhance customer focus and allowing for the strategic expansion of operations across the EMEA region.
Ryan Jones heads the South-West territory and has strengthened the leadership capabilities in pivotal markets, the UK, France and Nordics, additionally a regional indirect sales channel management role forms part of the initiative to further strengthen the focus across Southern Europe with Spain and Italy being key.
Ryan Jones comments: “As we continue the transformation of our South West Europe region, I am delighted to announce our leadership team, delivering enhanced sales and service support to all customers.”
“Ishida’s three-way harmony corporate philosophy delivers a clear vision and mission in ‘good for our customer, good for society is good for our company’ and therefore we remain focused on being our customers’ most trusted partner.
Through our innovation, we offer the benefits of global technologies and extensive applications expertise with localised, fast-response support, with the aim to provide real value in helping our customers overcome their challenges in improving efficiency and quality assurance.
The new members of the South West leadership team bring extensive experience in the packaging automation industry, coupled with the successful delivery of sustainable growth.
Ishida has always been at the forefront of packaging automation across the food industry and the team will play a pivotal role in delivering solutions that can make a significant contribution to our customers’ growth objectives,” said Ryan Jones
Paul Hitchin – General Sales Manager UK
Paul Hitchin has been with Ishida for 25 years in a variety of engineering, technical and sales roles, most recently as Key Account and UK South Team Sales Manager. He has over 30 years of experience in delivering packaging line solutions for all areas of the food industry.
In his new role as General Sales Manager, Paul will lead Ishida’s UK sales team, supporting and developing team members and establishing and maintaining strong working partnerships with customers and business partners that are central to Ishida’s success.
“Our customers make our business what it is,” said Paul. “In a fast-paced industry such as the food sector, where the only constant is change, we must ensure we have the agility and adaptability to respond quickly to customer requirements. Key to this is our extensive range of equipment and our ability to devise solutions ranging from single machines to fully integrated line installations.
Equally important is ensuring all team members have the right skills to deliver the highest levels of service to our customers” concludes Paul Hitchin.
Ishida has an established market presence in the UK and continues to work closely with their customer base to overcome challenges and deliver improved packaging efficiency through automation.
Mathieu Granier – General Sales Manager France and North Africa
Ishida Europe has appointed Mathieu Granier as General Sales Manager Ishida France and North Africa.
Mathieu has been promoted from his previous role at Ishida as Sales Manager, France. Before joining Ishida in 2020, Mathieu was Regional Sales Director at a transportation equipment manufacturer.
Mathieu comments: “As the world comes out of lockdown, there is a brilliant opportunity to get closer to customers and provide them with the best products and solutions that Ishida offers. I’m looking forward to building my team and collaborating with them to deliver outstanding results.”
Food production in France is one of the largest in Europe, boasting strong exports and growing demand across the poultry, dairy, and bakery sectors. Ishida continues to invest in the region to ensure they can provide continued support, helping their growing customer base overcome challenges in weighing, packing and quality control.
Martin Willner – General Sales Manager – Nordics
Ishida Europe has appointed Martin Willner as General Sales Manager for the Nordic region, to support its growth in this geographically vast region. The Nordic region has seen steady growth in food production over the years, with the meat and dairy sectors playing a key role due to consumer trends. Ishida look to sustain and develop further their market share across Sweden and Norway in particular but also enhance their level of support across Denmark, Finland, and Iceland.
Martin has joined Ishida and brings with him decades of experience working within the food and pharmaceutical packaging industry, delivering impressive business growth in the Nordic region.
“The Nordic market is growing fast for Ishida thanks to its extensive range of weighing, packing and inspection solutions. I’m looking forward to building a dedicated Nordic team to ensure customers in the region benefit directly from the applications experience, capabilities and services provided by Ishida” said Martin Willner.
Stephen Kean – General Sales Manager – Indirect Sales
Ishida Europe has appointed Stephen Kean as General Sales Manager for indirect sales in the South-West European region.
Ryan Jones comments: “In his new role, Stephen will provide strategic direction and help to strengthen our working partnerships with Ishida distribution partners and OEMs. As well as facilitating the supply of Ishida equipment, he will also work with individual businesses to help support their longer-term strategy and objectives, identify new opportunities and markets to target, and collaborate with them in the design and supply of complete packing lines.”
“Establishing long-lasting and mutually-beneficial relationships has always been a key factor in Ishida’s continuing success and growth” explained Ryan
“Stephen’s appointment to this newly created role is an important part of this, ensuring that we can work easily and efficiently with our external partners and through this deliver an enhanced level of service to the end customer.
Stephen joined the Ishida Europe sales team in 2019 after 30 years of industry-specific experience. His wide-ranging experience will be invaluable in ensuring we can continue to deliver the best support for our partners, and this will bring benefits to all parties,” said Ryan Jones
Ryan concludes: “These appointments allow us to continue to deliver outstanding levels of customer support locally, whilst combining as a sub-region to give customers the benefit of agility and flexibility to meet ever-changing demands in the market.”
The demand across key sectors in the food industry continues to experience growth and the pandemic has highlighted the need for further automation to drive operational efficiency and the need to be more hygienic across the production environment.
Ishida Europe has been a market-leading supplier of end-to-end packaging line automation, from multihead weighers to packaging systems and quality control. The business is renowned for its unrivalled best-in-class customer service, an accolade founded on investment in people. These recent appointments have further fortified the level of experience within the business, with industry-leading expertise on hand to collaborate with customers to overcome present and future challenges.
Read more of the latest industry news and developments here: April 2022 Single Issue form – International Confectionery Magazine (in-confectionery.com)
Media contact
Roshini Bains,
Editor, International Confectionery
Tel: +44 (0) 1622 823 922
Email: editor@in-confectionery.com
