George Southworth has worked in the Natural, Organic and Specialty foods industry since 1981. He has held executive management positions in distribution, retailing and manufacturing.  His experience ranges from forming and leading initial phase developmental companies to those with annual sales in excess of $120 million. His last two positions were in the capacity of CEO, at distribution and manufacturing.

Mr. Southworth has led companies through a complete reformation to prepare and then guide them through rapid growth. A recent example of Mr. Southworth’s skills and experience is his tenure at Northeast Cooperatives, a full service distributor of 14,000 natural, specialty and organic products including produce. 

During Southworth’s 8 year tenure, he led the company from $24.7 million in net sales to $123.7 million for FY ending June 2002.  During that period he reformed the company business culture around a profit oriented, entrepreneurial, rapid response, and team-based functionality. 

Mr. Southworth led the company through a complete operating systems conversion of hardware, software and business applications while streamlining, simplifying and enhancing all business processes. 

Southworth led the company though the design, financing and construction of a new, modern 120,000 sq ft headquarters and distribution facility. 

During Mr. Southworth’s tenure, NEC purchased two natural foods distribution companies and through a normal competitive process, acquired the majority of the sales and customer base of a third natural foods distribution company. 

Mr. Southworth integrated and consolidated all aspects of sales, marketing, procurement, accounting and operations. He reduced distribution facilities from four to two. Concurrently he reduced the management team by 38% and the staff by 12% while improving system wide performance on all operational parameters. 

Southworth then sold the NEC to United Natural Foods Inc. in Dec 2002. 

As an industry leader, Mr. Southworth has advised and assisted hundreds of companies in their preparation to introduce their products at distribution and retail. He specializes in aligning brand, corporate, human resource and capital formation strategies and then preparing those companies for rapid growth and successive stages of organizational maturity. He is currently a consultant to the food industry and a member of the team at the Robin Hood Center, a non-profit organization working to eliminate hunger and poverty.