LEADERSHIP

Joe Piperato, Chairman/CEO

Joseph (Joe) Piperato is Chairman and CEO of J&G Foods, Inc., positions he has maintained since founding the company in 1999. He has 51 years of experience in the meat industry in various roles that include VP of Sales & Marketing and Senior VP for both public and private companies. He is proud to have been mentored early in his career by a meat industry Hall-of-Fame member.

He played a key role in growing a privately owned Texas meat processor, focused on the foodservice industry nationally, from $10 million annual sales to more than $100 million annually in just twelve years. The company was then acquired by a publically traded food company.

Joe has led J&G Foods on a path of steady growth over its 20 year existence. In the process, he re-engineered the company from a foodservice platform to one focused on supermarkets. Today, J&G Foods is one of America’s leading custom case-ready processors of fresh organic and “ABF” meats.

Joe holds a BS in Hotel Administration from Cornell University; he also undertook graduate studies at George Washington and Northwestern universities. A portion of his “giving back” to the meat industry includes developing and teaching for several years the first “meats course” at the University of Houston Hilton College of Hotel and Restaurant Management.

Bill Leva, President

Bill Leva was appointed President of J&G Foods, Inc in April 2019. He previously functioned as J&G’s Chief Operating Officer. He is a life-long New Englander who has over 40 years in food manufacturing with the last 24 years in an upper management capacity (COO, Vice President, or Director). His background started in quality assurance and he merged into the combination of quality and operations during the Total Quality Management wave.

He has managed both medium sized and multi-plant companies in the meat, snack foods and confectionery industries. He is a strong proponent of Lean principles and is passionate about applying them to his daily practices. He has lectured food technology students at conferences on the value of incorporating Lean education as part of their curriculum.

Bill’s education includes a Bachelor of Science in Operations Management from Northeastern University, a Master of Science in Total Quality Systems from Anna Maria College and a Lean Six Sigma Black Belt from Villanova University.

Ed Briggs, Senior Manager, Technical Support & Product Innovation

Ed has been working at J&G Foods since 1999 with 14 of those years as Quality Assurance Manager. He was also in the J&G facility under prior ownership starting in 1990 in roles including QA technician, Process Control Technician and QA Manager. Ed oversees customer specifications, product development, and technical sales support. Ed obtained his apprenticeship in the food industry by working in commercial food preparation for 5 years prior to joining J&G Foods. Ed is a graduate of the Hall Institute of Technology and he has also completed food technology classes at Essex Agricultural Institute.

Theresa Morin, Controller

Theresa has been at J&G for 9 years with the last 7 as Controller. She has been working in a business management capacity for 22+ years with 14 of them being in the meat industry. She leads the office staff and provides the numbers for the financials and many of the operational performance metrics. Theresa also has several years of Human Resource management experience and manages it here at J&G as well. In this role, she oversees all of the employee benefits, training, well-being and on-boarding programs. Her strong team-oriented style and outgoing personality lends itself well for all of J&G’s associates.