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American Peanut Council elects new officers

by American Peanut Council


Posted on Jan 12, 2023 at 0:00 AM


At its 2022 Winter Conference in Atlanta in December, the American Peanut Council (APC) elected new officers and executive committee members to lead the organization for the coming year.

Collins McNeill, of M.C. McNeill & Company, was elected chairman. McNeill is the owner of a Tallahassee-based peanut brokerage firm.  Georgia farmer Donald Chase was elected vice-chairman. Chase also serves as a member of the Georgia Peanut Commission. Selected as secretary/treasurer was Anne-Marie DeLorenzo, Senior Strategic Sourcing Manager for Peanuts-Americas at Mars Wrigley.

The board also approved recommendations from the year-long work of a Governance Task Force. The task force recommendations included significant changes to the bylaws to better reflect industry priorities, improve transparency in decision-making and establish parameters between the work of the board and related committees. A major outcome of the bylaws reform was the creation of a new 15-member executive committee. The new executive committee members include representatives from the four industry segments represented in APC’s membership:

Growers – Tim Burch and Donald Chase, Georgia; Joel Sirmon, AL; Dell Cotton, VA; Larry Don Womack, TX; Paul Rogers, VA, representing as chairman of the National Peanut Board

Shellers – Greg Harnish, Birdsong Peanuts; Clint Piper, Golden Peanuts; Jamie Brown, OFI; Rachel Santos, Premium Peanut; John Powell, APSA

Manufacturers – Anne-Marie DeLorenzo, Mars Wrigley; Kimmi Wernli, Crazy Richards ; Brian Reed, The JM Smucker Company

Allied – Collins McNeill, M.C. McNeill & Company

The make-up of the 54-member board of directors remains unchanged.


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