Associated British Foods has named Richard Lane as its new business unit controller for its Jordans Ryvita business.

Lane is to help oversee the integration of the Jordans and Ryvita operations, merged last June to give ABF a stronger position in healthy eating.

"It's an exciting time to be joining what is effectively a completely new business structure as part of a focused and results-oriented sales management team," said Lane.

"In the short term the biggest challenge for me is the transition of Jordans and Ryvita into one integrated business, with lots of new people in new roles delivering better results than ever.

"This is going well and ahead of schedule and both brands are also benefiting from substantial marketing investment, with Ryvita on TV during the early part of the year, and Jordans airing new advertising from mid-March - its first TV since January 2006."

But the company also needed to address longer-term plans and effectively manage its portfolio in the face of "increasing competition from other new products and brands", said Lane.

ABF said it had chosen the former Cadbury senior NAM for Tesco after being impressed by his "excellent" understanding of account management in multiple retailers.

He will report in to Jordans and Ryvita's UK sales director Scott Ellison and his main responsibility will be to lead the brands' Tesco and Sainsbury's NAM teams and to focus on developing new business relationships.