About the Company

Agrilink Vegetable Co. processes and markets fruits, vegetables and grains under branded, private label and foodservice labels. Agrilink markets its products under well-known regional and national brands as well as under private label brands. Familiar brands include Birds Eye, Freshlike, Veg-All, Comstock, MiKensies, Silver Floss and Wilderness.

Mr. Fuhrmann has over 30 years experience various executive and senior executive positions in R&D with General Mills, Pillsbury, Dean Foods Vegetable Company and Agrilink. He has been responsible for numerous food product innovations. Several of these such as Baby Vegetables and Chicken Voila created entirely new product categories.

Mr. Fuhrman has integrated Organizational Engineering tools and principles with a Stage Gate product development model. These tools combine to consistently produce product innovations while maintaining a market failure rate of under 10%. This compares with an industry average failure rate of approximately 60%. Currently, 75% of Birds Eye’s sales volume is due to new products developed during Mr. Fuhrmann’s tenure as head of R&D.

Mr. Fuhrmann holds and MBA and a BS in Chemical Engineering. He has participated in the Harvard Executive Development Program at the Harvard Business School. He is a board member and sits on the Advisory Council of Mankato State University Business School Advisory Council.

Publications

Co-Author, "Enhancing and expanding 'Six Hats' thinking with Organizational Engineering." OD Practitioner, Journal of Organization Development, October, 1999.

Winner, 1999 Edison Award for new product excellence. American Frozen Food Institute.

Contributed to and quoted in "Intuition Engineering". Training Magazine, September 2002.