CV Drop

Treatt: Securing a Senior Business Development Manager for the UK

Overview

Treatt is a global manufacturer of natural extracts and ingredient solutions for the beverage, flavour and fragrance markets. Headquartered in Bury St Edmunds, the business has a long-established reputation in natural extracts, citrus oils, botanicals, tea, coffee, sugar reduction and broader flavour ingredient solutions.

As Treatt continued to expand its presence in the beverage category, the business identified the need for a newly created Senior Business Development Manager role focused on the UK market.

This was not a replacement hire. It was a strategic growth appointment, created to help Treatt build stronger traction with major UK beverage and juice accounts.

The objective was clear: identify and attract a commercially driven business developer who could open doors, build opportunity, and strengthen Treatt’s position with a highly targeted group of beverage customers.

The Challenge

Treatt required a confidential search with a highly targeted approach.

The ideal candidate needed to bring deep knowledge of the UK beverage market, strong customer access, and a genuine hunter mentality. This was not a role for someone simply managing inherited accounts. Treatt needed someone capable of creating momentum, generating new opportunities, and building relationships with major beverage brands, bottlers and juice manufacturers.

That made the search particularly challenging.

The UK beverage ingredients market is a highly competitive talent space. A number of flavour, ingredient, colour and beverage-related businesses have been looking for similar profiles, with some searches running for 12 months or more. The best candidates are often well looked after, strongly retained, and not actively looking for a move.

There are also many capable professionals in this market who know the customers well, but whose experience is more account management-led. While those individuals may be excellent in their own right, Treatt needed someone with a stronger business development edge.

The successful candidate was therefore likely to be employed by a competitor and would need to be approached directly, professionally, and with a clear explanation of the opportunity.

The Search

Paragon Talent carried out a discreet and targeted market mapping exercise across the UK beverage ingredient landscape.

The search covered:

  • Flavour houses
  • Ingredient manufacturers
  • Colour manufacturers
  • Citrus and natural extract businesses
  • Juice and beverage ingredient suppliers
  • Specialist distributors
  • Adjacent technical ingredient businesses serving beverage customers

The process combined direct headhunting, market knowledge, previous conversations, network insight and personal recommendations.

Given the confidential nature of the assignment, it was important that the approach was controlled, selective and professional. The search was not designed to generate a high volume of speculative candidates. It was designed to identify the right people, approach them with care, and qualify both their relevance and motivation.

The candidate who was ultimately appointed came from outside our immediate network. She was identified through detailed market mapping, approached directly, and engaged through an open and transparent conversation about Treatt, the role, the growth opportunity, and why her background appeared so well aligned.

The Shortlist

Paragon Talent presented a shortlist of five candidates, all from relevant flavour, ingredient and colour markets.

Each candidate brought strong exposure to the beverage category, but with different strengths across customer relationships, technical ingredient sales, commercial development and market access.

Between them, the shortlist had experience working with a number of major UK beverage and juice accounts, including businesses such as Britvic, Refresco, Princes, Fever-Tree, Nichols and other leading beverage brands and bottlers.

This gave Treatt a strong, relevant and credible shortlist, rather than a broad selection of loosely matched candidates.

Treatt moved quickly and efficiently through the interview process, beginning with Teams interviews before progressing selected candidates to on-site meetings at their Bury St Edmunds headquarters.

The calibre of the final candidates created serious consideration around whether more than one hire could be made. Both brought valuable experience and different strengths. Ultimately, Treatt made the decision to appoint Marie.

The Appointment

Marie joined Treatt from Kerry, where she had built a strong track record in the UK beverage market, working closely with major beverage customers and delivering successfully in a highly relevant commercial role.

Her background gave Treatt exactly what the search required: strong beverage market knowledge, established customer understanding, commercial credibility, and the ability to open doors with the types of accounts Treatt wanted to grow.

Beyond her market experience, Marie’s personality and working style aligned very well with the Treatt team. Since joining the business, the feedback has been exceptionally positive.

While the role was remote and did not require someone to be based near headquarters, Marie being located less than 20 minutes from Treatt’s Bury St Edmunds site became a very positive outcome for both sides.

For Marie, proximity to the site gave her the opportunity to become more deeply embedded in the business, build stronger internal relationships, and work closely with Treatt’s technical and applications teams.

For Treatt, it meant appointing someone who could combine external customer development with easy access to the people, product knowledge, technical expertise and internal collaboration needed to be successful.

The Result

Treatt successfully appointed a Senior Business Development Manager with direct beverage market experience, strong customer knowledge, and a proven background with one of the leading players in the ingredients market.

The search delivered:

  • A confidential and highly targeted market approach
  • A shortlist of five relevant candidates from the flavour, ingredient and colour markets
  • Strong customer overlap across major UK beverage and juice accounts
  • A successful hire from a major competitor in the ingredients space
  • A candidate with both the commercial profile and cultural fit to succeed
  • A positive geographical outcome, with the appointed candidate based close to Treatt’s headquarters

For a newly created role in a competitive and candidate-short market, this was a strong result.

The appointment gives Treatt a commercially credible business developer who understands the UK beverage landscape, knows the target customer base, and can help the business continue building momentum in a strategically important category.

Why It Mattered

In specialist ingredient markets, the right candidate is rarely waiting on the open market.

For roles like this, success depends on knowing where to look, understanding the difference between account management and genuine business development, and being able to approach high-performing people in a way that earns their attention.

Treatt understood that the person they wanted was likely already employed, valued, and not actively looking. That meant the search needed to be proactive, discreet and highly focused from the outset.

By combining market mapping, direct headhunting, sector knowledge and a clear candidate engagement process, Paragon Talent helped Treatt secure a senior commercial hire capable of making a real impact in the UK beverage market.

 

FAQs

Can Paragon Talent support confidential searches in the beverage ingredients market?
Yes. Many senior commercial hires in the beverage ingredients market require a confidential and highly targeted approach. The strongest candidates are often employed by competitors and are not actively applying for new roles, which means they need to be identified, approached and engaged professionally.

How do you find senior business development candidates in specialist ingredient markets?
We use a combination of market mapping, direct headhunting, sector knowledge, previous conversations, network insight and personal recommendations. This allows us to identify candidates who may not be visible through job advertising or active applicant channels.

What made this Senior Business Development Manager search challenging?
The role required someone with strong beverage market knowledge, direct customer understanding and a genuine business development mindset. Many professionals in the market are strong account managers, but Treatt needed someone capable of opening doors, building pipeline and creating new commercial opportunities.

Do you recruit for senior commercial roles across flavour, beverage and speciality ingredients?
Yes. Paragon Talent supports senior commercial, business development, sales leadership and executive search assignments across the flavour, beverage, speciality ingredients and wider food ingredient markets in the UK, Europe and the US.

 

If you are hiring a senior commercial professional in the flavour, beverage or speciality ingredients market, contact Paragon Talent for a confidential conversation.

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