Dive Brief:
- Three of the bigger players in the North American candy industry have named new executives to the top slots at their companies in recent days.
- Lindt & Sprungli named Andreas Pfluger to run its newly acquired Russell Stover brand, ending weeks of speculation over who would take the helm at the company.
- NECCO, the nation's oldest candy company, named Michael McGee as chief executive officer. And Justin's, which makes peanut butter cups as well as nut butters, named Peter Burns, former president of Hain Celestial's Celestial Seasonings, as president and CEO.
Dive Insight:
The fact that three candy companies would change leadership within days of each other is just a coincidence ... but it sure is a strange one. And that's not the only thing that's strange about this. It would seem that the start of autumn is a particularly difficult time to swap leaders in an industry that is gearing up for the biggest day of the year: Halloween.