Carol Lloyd's Bio
Manager of Food Applications
Carol Lloyd joined Mars Botanical as Manager of Food Applications in October 2008. As head of Food Applications, Carol oversees development of Mars Botanical products, leveraging her more than 30 years of food business experience and the Mars history of innovation to help pioneer plant-derived products aimed at improving human health.
Carol comes to Mars having developed more than 1000 food products, including industrial ingredients, foodservice and retail products including cocoa based mixes, syrups and beverages, as well as a variety of nutritional functional foods and supplements. Most recently Carol served as Product Development Manager at Starbucks Coffee Company in Seattle, where she oversaw product improvement and commercialization of the company’s breakfast sandwiches.
Prior to Starbucks, Carol was Research and Development Manager for Van Law Foods in Fullerton, Calif. In her role, Carol reformulated more than 200 products for improved shelf life and cost efficiencies, which included drink bases, bar mixes, flavors and sauces, including Paul Newman’s salad dressings. Her role was hands-on, overseeing all phases of development from product implementation into plant production and quality control.
Other company experiences include: A. E. Staley (now Tate & Lyle) leading the Sensory Department; Hunt-Wesson Foods (now ConAgra), as senior scientist developing foodservice products, responsible for 2100 SKU’s; Director of R&D for SSI Foods, division of Simplot, working with major chain accounts such as Taco Bell, Jack in the Box, Carl’s Jr., Hardee’s and Burger King; and R&D Manager for Contessa Food Products, during which time the company retail sales rose from $5 million to $38 million over three years as a result of the growth of new frozen meal products. Carol has extensive experience as a strategic planning and technical consultant to business owners and professionals developed during the time she owned Austin Food Tech, Inc. 1988-1998. During this 10-year period, she managed an average of 60 clients annually, and developed and reformulated approximately 700 products, from soup to nuts.
She served as technical collaborator for Healthy Oven Low-Fat Baking Book and Baking 911, and is a highly effective public speaker on technical topics. She was a charter member of the Los Angeles Foodservice Women’s Roundtable, former president of the Consulting Chemists Association (1993-1996), and has held long-standing memberships with the Institute of Food Technologists, the Herbal Research Foundation, and Returned Peace Corps Volunteers (served in Brazil 1974-1976). Carol has an M.B.A. from the University of La Verne in La Verne, California, an M.S. in Food Science from the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana, and a B.S. in Vocational Home Economics Education from Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana.