Food Logistics Reveals Winners of 2022 Rock Stars of the Supply Chain Award: Hillebrand’s Prabh Hans and Malaina Hudson Receive Honor

Food Logistics Reveals Winners of 2022 Rock Stars of the Supply Chain Award: Hillebrand’s Prabh Hans and Malaina Hudson Receive Honor

This award recognizes influential individuals in the industry whose achievements, hard work, and vision have shaped the global cold food supply chain.

(HOUSTON, TX)—Feb. 15, 2022—Food Logistics, the only publication exclusively dedicated to covering the movement of product through the global cold food supply chain, recently named two leaders from global beverage logistics company Hillebrand—Prabh Hans, VP of Domestic Services, and Malaina Hudson, Director of Supply Chain Systems—as winners of the 2022 Rock Stars of the Supply Chain award.

“Behind every great company is an even greater leader. And, the supply chain leaders receiving this award are no exception,” says Marina Mayer, Editor-in-Chief of Food Logistics and Supply & Demand Chain Executive. “Within the last 18 months or so, the cold food chain has seen a lot of rock stars rise to the occasion. These rock stars developed platforms, integrated automation, and led teams through disruption-after-disruption. They’ve helped their companies pivot and adapt, and continue to do so with grace, agility, flexibility, and resilience. These rock stars are strong in so many ways. Congratulations to the true rock stars of the supply chain, who continue to keep the cold food chain moving.”

In the past year, Prabh Hans blended two disparate domestic operations teams—which span five offices across the US and Canada—to unify domestic operations across multiple services, departments, platforms, and borders. This created efficiencies in the domestic wine consolidation business in North America, which resulted in a $2 million improvement. He also led the team that rehabilitated one of our revenue centers into a safer, more profitable (at an increase of 30%), and efficient business unit—making it robust, scalable, and repeatable in other parts of the country. Hans guided another team that brought internationally sourced aluminum cans into the US. Hillebrand transported domestically, stored and secured millions upon millions of cans for their brewer customers who were facing a severe can shortage.

Malaina Hudson has built a strong operations team by providing regular training, tools, guidance, and encouragement to each member, inspiring them to always reach beyond their grasp to achieve greater goals. When COVID-19 brought our world to an abrupt stop, millions of full kegs of beer were trapped on the premises of bars, restaurants, and venues, not to mention in the supply chains. Consumption behavior changed almost instantly. Customers switched from draft beer to packaged beer (bottles and cans), which they drank in the safety of their homes. Beer is heavy, which required a different calibration for Hillebrand’s normal transportation and handling processes. Hillebrand had to execute this solution in compliance with the unique processes defined by each customer. Malaina’s team therefore launched Kegspediter Heavy, which disposed of 1.5 million gallons of beer in a legal and environmentally-friendly method. Additionally, Malaina and her team expanded Hillebrand’s national disposal facility network, which not only accommodated the surge caused by COVID-19, but also aligned Hillebrand with more sustainable and trustworthy partners, which ultimately grew the company’s certified sustainable disposal network by 100 percent and increased the capacity for disposal by 800 percent.

Recipients of this year’s award will be profiled in the January/February 2022 print issue of Food Logistics, as well as online at www.FoodLogistics.com. Go to https://www.foodlogistics.com/awards to learn more about other Food Logistics’ awards.

About Food Logistics

Food Logistics reaches more than 26,000 supply chain executives in the global food and beverage industries, including executives in the food sector (growers, producers, manufacturers, wholesalers and grocers) and the logistics section (transportation, warehousing, distribution, software and technology), who share a mutual interest in the operations and business aspects of the global cold food supply chain. Food Logistics and sister publication, Supply & Demand Chain Executive, are also home to L.I.N.K. and L.I.N.K. Educate podcast channels, L.I.N.K. Live, SCN Summit, and SupplyChainLearningCenter.com, among other channels. Go to www.FoodLogistics.com to learn more.

ABOUT HILLEBRAND

Hillebrand, founded in 1844 in Germany, is the leading solutions provider in the forwarding, transport and logistics of beverages, bulk liquids and products that require special care. Fueled by a passion to serve the beverage industry, Hillebrand provides seamless service to producers of beer, wine, spirits, specialty beverages and products by leveraging technology-enabled solutions and a cohesive team of 2,600 professionals in 90 countries. For more information about Hillebrand’s solutions, visit www.hillebrand.com.