Pod Foods Brings On Ex-KeHE SVP of Growth, Bolsters Leadership Team with Industry Leaders

Grocery Tech Innovator Pod Foods Adds Three Experienced Members to the Team To Support Further Growth and National Expansion

AUSTIN, Texas, Oct. 18, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Pod Foods, the leading grocery B2B marketplace platform, today announced the hire of three new executives to the team. Leading the new additions is Peter Gialantzis who previously led the growth team at KeHE, one of the nation's top wholesale food distributors. Timothy Wee and Ankit Patel also join the leadership team with a  breadth of relevant industry experience coming from companies like Amazon and Boxed. As Pod Foods continues to expand its national presence, the team has grown significantly from just 33 employees in December 2020, to over 70 employees today. These new hires are bringing renowned grocery industry and technology experience to Pod Foods to to promote  innovation in the space and execute faster on the company vision.

Peter Gialantzis is the newest member of the Pod Foods team and joins as their VP of Business Development. Peter is fresh off a 6 year stint at KeHE Distributors where he helped grow the Fresh, Exclusive Brands, and E-commerce businesses. With experience at KeHE to source and implement a national scale supply chain, Peter is a perfect fit to join the Pod Foods team as it moves towards nationwide expansion. As head of Fresh product distribution, Peter understands the need for local and regional itemization and has built lasting win-win supplier partnerships to navigate the complicated distribution required for grocery.

"I got into this business over 20 years ago because food is the great common denominator of humanity, the one industry that can enrich everyone's quality of life every single day. Since then I've dedicated my career to breaking down barriers between great food and people whose lives it touches," said Peter Gialantzis, the new VP of Business Development at Pod Foods. "This industry is always evolving, and we've reached a post-covid inflection point where the lines between traditional "channels" and "categories" are permanently blurred, which is a good thing. When I looked into the future of who was best positioned to connect these new paths between producer to consumer, it looked a whole lot like what Pod Foods is building. That is right where I need to be."

As a professional dedicated to food accessibility, Peter also brings experience as a founding member of Boulder-based Lucky's market, helping to execute a majority sale by Kroger, and before that spent over a decade at Whole Foods, specializing in category management, manufacturing, distribution, and merchandising. At Pod Foods, Peter will be an essential leader in the future growth of the company with his deep knowledge of brands and distribution.

Timothy Wee leads the engineering team at Pod Foods as  CTO. He is also one of the company's early investors. Before Pod Foods, he led and worked on Machine Learning teams in multiple notable Silicon Valley tech giants including Google, Amazon, and Walmart Labs. His strong experience in scaling marketplace platforms and building technical infrastructure is instrumental to Pod Foods' rapid growth and competitive advantage.  

Ankit Patel has joined Pod Foods as the company's COO. Previously, Ankit led vendor management teams across merchandising, marketing, and supply chain in Boxed, a widely successful online wholesale retailer. He brings to Pod Foods his deep expertise and experience in CPG, wholesale commerce and scaling supply chain to support the company in an exciting time of growth.

To learn more about Pod Foods and how the company is reinventing wholesale distribution for retailers and brands please visit: https://podfoods.co/.

Pod Foods is a tech-enabled, data-driven full-service distribution solution, reaching retailers and brands via a B2B wholesale marketplace. Named a 2022 top 10 most innovative food company by Fast Company, Pod Foods is revolutionizing the relationship between brands and retailers. With the platform, food retailers can easily procure from emerging brands and receive orders in a consolidated fashion via an optimized logistics network. Food manufacturers can grow their retail businesses with higher margins, streamlined logistics, and transparency. In-store marketing support, data analytics, and online recommendations bring visibility to emerging brands, accelerating sales so retailers and manufacturers alike can sell more, more easily. Follow @podfoodsco or say [email protected] for better distribution.

SOURCE Pod Foods