James Worthington, CEO of Kneaders Bakery & Café, is a gold winner in the 9th Annual 2017 Golden Bridge Awards ‘Food & Beverage Industry Executive of the Year’ category. The Golden Bridge Awards recognize the world’s best executives and management teams from every major industry in the world including public and private, for-profit and non-profit, largest to smallest and new start-ups.
Under Worthington’s direction, Kneaders experienced a 500 percent growth rate in restaurant locations with an expansion to 58 stores. Worthington has been able to maintain this growth while keeping store quality fresh and providing customers with wholesome meal options. He helped implement the Food Safety High 5 Program, a food and beverage industrywide program, to ensure food quality and safety for each Kneaders location.
“Every CEO works hard to make their business a success and I am proud to represent Kneaders within the fast-casual dining space,” says James Worthington, CEO of Kneaders Bakery & Café. “While I have the honor of accepting the 2017 Golden Bridge Executive of the Year Award winner for the Food and Beverage industry I also recognize our Kneaders home office team and store operators. I’m lucky to be surrounded by talented professionals that care about maintaining the good reputation we have built over the past twenty years. Our teams will continue serving delicious foods for families to share and supporting our local communities.”
In addition to his business success, Worthington has continued with his family’s tradition in making charitable giving a priority throughout the company. Worthington began by partnering with local non-profit organizations to feed communities in need. The company ensures that bread left at the end of each day gets donated to a local non-profit that feeds the hungry. Most recently, Kneaders has expanded their social good efforts in the fight to end cancer by launching the Hope Fights Childhood Cancer Campaign to benefit Dr. Joshua Schiffman’s unique research on elephant DNA at the Huntsman Cancer Institute. Throughout the month of September, all 58 Kneaders locations will be selling elephant-shaped sugar cookies. One-hundred percent of the sales will go toward Schiffman’s research. This funding is important because the National Cancer Institute spends 96 percent of its research on adult cancers.
