A pitch of yeast is testament to strength in numbers, as is Berkeley Yeast’s growing team. One of our newest hires is VP of Product Strategy, Anthony Bledsoe, who brings expertise gleaned from more than 15 years working for breweries ranging from Trumer Braueri to Anheuser-Busch InBev.
In 2009, he graduated from the Master Brewers Program at University of California, Davis, and went to work for Hawaii’s Kona Brewing, eventually becoming director of brewing operations.
Brewing on an island “really gave me an appreciation for forward thinking and planning,” Bledsoe says. Need more hops and malt? That’ll be at least two weeks.
Craft Brew Alliance acquired Kona during his tenure, and Bledsoe returned to the mainland at the company’s Portland, Oregon, operations at Widmer Brothers. He worked in process improvement across the company’s national brewery portfolio, before transitioning into innovation. “I got to learn about the commercial side of the business,” Bledsoe says.
After ABI acquired CBA, Bledsoe became the company’s innovation manager. In part, he led a liaison linking nearly two dozen breweries to the supply stream. “I’ve seen so many of the challenges and struggles that our customers are facing,” Bledsoe says.
Now at Berkeley Yeast, he helps our customers identify opportunities and provide solutions informed by working at breweries of every conceivable scale. “It’s natural for me to talk with our customers and find out how we can add value to their business,” he says. “I joined Berkeley Yeast because I saw how impactful Berkeley’s technology was going to be for the industry. Having a hand in shaping the future of that is pretty exciting.”
Have any questions? Email Anthony at anthony@berkeleyyeast.com.
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