George Stege is the Senior Director for Manufacturing for Simple Mills Company. He has nearly 24 years in the Food and Spirit Industries, with stints at Kellogg Company and Beam Suntory prior to joining Simple Mills in April 2020. At Simple Mills he has expanded his team to meet the company’s growth and that team is responsible for Contract Management, Packaging Development and Process Engineering. Simple Mills is a leading Natural Food company, which makes gluten free cookies, crackers, baked bars and baking mixes. At Simple Mills we pride ourselves on ‘nothing artificial ever!’.

During his previous work experiences he has been involved in Contract Manufacturing on food platforms, like Frozen, Breakfast Cereals, Crackers, Bars, Cookies, Popped Snacks and Prepared Meals. George was the lead Business Developer for the Kellogg’s Special K Cracker Chips innovation launch back in 2012, a product that was a Nielsen Top 10 Food Innovation for that year and was the largest Kellogg Snacks Division launch in its history.

In the Spirits industry he was responsible for the Global network of Contract Manufacturers for Beam Suntory in countries like India, Spain, Netherlands, UK, Brazil, Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Mexico as well as in America. His work there involved canning/bottling of Ready To Drink Alcoholic Beverages and Cocktails, the processing and blending of spirits, Mergers and Acquisitions support, Contract negotiations, Network strategies, developing CI strategies to improve the Best Value Concept (lowest Cost, highest Quality and best Service) for the Contract Manufacturing Network at Beam Suntory.