Tractor Beverage Company, creator of certified organic, non-GMO foodservice beverages, announced that industry-veteran Asif Khalid has joined its executive team as the company's first-ever chief operating officer.
Khalid brings a wealth of beverage category experience to the company and joins its ranks following a 14-year career at 7-Eleven, where he served as director of store innovation. In addition to this leading role at the convenience store giant, Khalid was also the senior category manager of non-alcoholic beverages, senior product development manager of Private Brands, and regional market operations manager. More recently, he was the founder and CEO of Good Gracious Beverages, a foodservice company committed to revolutionizing restaurant and hospitality beverage offerings with sustainable craft drinks designed to increase margins via product and equipment innovations that reduce footprints and overhead.
"Asif is a transformational leader whose experience in the beverage industry promises to catapult Tractor to new heights,” Kevin Sherman, Tractor Beverage Company’s CEO, said in the announcement. “He’s joining an already successful team, and with the inception of the COO role, I'm confident we will go into 2023 the strongest we've ever been, with a high-velocity operating model that will empower our team to deliver an unmatched caliber of service to our pouring partners. I'm eager to see what we can accomplish together as the remainder of this year unfolds.”
According to the announcement, Khalid's work at Good Gracious to both develop brand, vision and strategy for a new-to-market family of beverages and commercialize product and equipment innovations for alcoholic and nonalcoholic drinks alike makes him the ideal choice to boost Tractor's efforts to disrupt the foodservice beverage industry.
“I am thrilled to join the Tractor leadership team and look forward to bringing my experience to this new role to help build on the brand’s success, innovating in the beverage space while creating more value for our customers, partners, and employees,” Khalid added in the announcement.
As its new COO, a role created specifically to allow the company to leverage his diverse skills, Khalid will apply his knowledge and passion to the next phase of Tractor's ongoing growth.
