Astral Foods
Executive Directors
Christiaan Ernst Schutte (63)
Christiaan Ernst Schutte (63)
Experience: Chris started his career in the Poultry Industry after a five-year contract with the South African Air Force. He joined Golden Lay Farms, a division of Tiger Oats in 1984 as an Assistant Farm Manager. Chris progressed through the ranks of Golden Lay a table egg producer, to emerge as the Sales Director before joining Astral Foods in 2002. At the time he was appointed as Retail Sales Manager for Meadow Feeds, then being promoted to National Sales Manager for the Feed Division. In 2004 Chris was appointed as Managing Director for Astral’s Feed Division, and later appointed to the Astral’s Board in 2006. In 2009 Chris was appointed as Chief Executive Officer of Astral.
External appointments: None
Dries Ferreira (45)
Dries Ferreira (45)
Dries graduated from the University of Port Elizabeth (now NMU) and later qualified as a Chartered Accountant (SA) in 2004 after completing his articles with PricewaterhouseCoopers Inc. He was appointed CFO and Executive Director of Dawn Limited in 2007. Subsequently, Dries established a business providing niche turnaround, corporate finance advisory and various other C-suite solutions to clients in South Africa and Europe. This included serving as the CFO of Newpark REIT Limited as well as European CFO of a multinational ICT turnaround group. Dries has extensive experience serving as Executive Director in the listed company space. He was appointed as CFO Designate of Astral on 10 January 2022.
Gary Desmond Arnold (51)
Gary Desmond Arnold (51)
Appointed 1 October 2021 as Group Chief Operating Officer
Experience: Gary started his career in 1997 as Animal Nutritionist for Meadow Feeds Delmas and Meadow Feeds
Welkom. In 1998 he was appointed as the Technical Manager for Meadow Feeds Delmas and in 2001 he was
appointed as the Technical Manager for Meadow Feeds northern region. In 2004 he was appointed as the
Managing Director of Provimi SSA (previously Nutec Southern Africa) and in 2006 he was appointed to the position
of COO for Meadow Feeds in the Western Cape.
Gary was appointed as Director: Business Development of Astral Operations Ltd on 1 November 2010 and in
October 2016 he was appointed to the position of Managing Director of Astral’s Agriculture Division.
Effective 1 October 2021, Gary has been appointed as Group COO of Astral. This position has been introduced with
a specific mandate to optimise expansion opportunities and continuous improvement initiatives, whilst effectively
allocating capital and human resources across all Astral divisions.
External appointments: None
Frans Gerryts van Heerden (43)
Frans Gerryts van Heerden (43)
Appointed 1 October 2021 as an Executive Director
Experience: Frans started his career with the Group 15 years ago when he joined Astral’s Internal Audit Department. He was subsequently appointed to different Financial Manager positions within the Group, and on 1 June 2017 promoted to COO of the Poultry Commercial Division: Central Region. On 1 November 2020, he was appointed as the Managing Director of the Group’s Poultry Commercial Division and effective 1 October 2021 to the Board as an Executive Director.
External appointments: None
