Get to Know Our Team!

Fuchs North America has a 75-year legacy as a leading provider of custom seasoning blends, and without our fantastic team of employees we could not be successful. Keep reading to hear more about some of our team members and their latest accomplishments!

Women in Manufacturing

This year two of our team members, Lisa Bookhultz and Shara Birchfield, were nominated as Champions of Maryland Manufacturing! Lisa has worked at Fuchs for 26 years, but before that she earned her degree in biology with a chemistry minor from Towson University. Lisa has worn many hats during her time here in a variety of different departments. Currently, Bookhultz is our Quality Assurance Manager, but she has also worked in the chem lab and planning. Shara Birchfield attended Virginia Tech where she earned her bachelor’s in industrial and systems engineering. Before joining the Fuchs team, a year ago as our Director of Operations, Shara began her career at PepsiCo before leaving for McCormick & Company.

At Fuchs we are lucky to see many of our employees grow and develop throughout their careers, and this includes Gale Yount. Gale is one of our outstanding customer service representatives, and she has been with the company for almost 30 years! We spoke with her about her time at Fuchs and she said, “I am very proud of the customer relationships I have made through the years, and I consider many of my customers to also be ‘friends.’ In addition to the many customer relationships, I have built I have gotten to know and grow close with many of my coworkers as well. It has been a blessing to work at Fuchs, and I am very proud to continue to work for our company. Our goal has always been to build partnerships with our customers and grow together. I look forward to watching us grow even bigger than we are today.”

Spotlight on Sensory

Our sensory department continues to grow and evolve, and this would not be possible without our Program Manager in Sensory & Consumer Insights, Annette Hottenstein. Annette began her career at Fuchs North America in April 2021, and we spoke with her about her time at Fuchs so far as well as how she got into sensory. Hottenstein described how she has always had a love for all things food and cooking, leading her to initially pursue a degree in nutrition at Penn State. During her sophomore year she discovered food science through a professor’s sensory experiments, and since then she has been hooked.

Annette went on to pursue her master’s degree in food science with an emphasis in sensory at Texas A&M University. We next spoke about what a ‘typical’ day looks like for her, and with each project needing its own unique approach there is no average day. You can often find Hottenstein working with our Sr. Sensory Lab Technician (Donald Carter) coordinating a variety of sensory tests including ‘tetrad’ and ‘difference from control’ tests. Lately Annette has been enjoying presenting sensory concepts to our customers. A recent favorite was her presentation on ‘Chemethesis’ which refers to different sensory mouthfeels such as heat, cooling, tingling, and numbing.

Record Breakers

Without the employees in our plant, we would be unable to deliver our seasonings and spices to our customers. Justin Harvey is only one of our many essential employees. Harvey is one of our amazing packaging operators, and he has worked at Fuchs for roughly 4 years. Over this past summer Justin was a part of the packaging operator team that broke our premier machine record. This group completed a whopping 71k pounds in a single shift!

Thank you to all of the employees at Fuchs North America for your hard work and dedication!