Advancing Resilient Supply Chains Through Sustainable Agriculture

Andrew Utterback leads global sustainable sourcing at Ingredion, where he integrates regenerative agriculture, supply chain resilience and business strategy. Over the past nearly twenty years at the company, he has developed deep expertise in non-GMO traceability and crop biotechnology policy. His work builds bridges between growers, global brands, NGOs and investors to support lasting change in agricultural systems. Utterback helps turn environmental goals into long-term value for producers and industry stakeholders by focusing on practical, systems-level sustainability.

Sustainability Without the Slogans

Utterback’s career doesn’t follow a straight line. It moves across borders, industries, and paradigms. From contract fields in Indiana to commodity negotiations in Canada and sustainability frameworks in Asia, he has built a rare combination of technical fluency and strategic reach. At every step, his work reflects a tension many in agriculture still struggle to resolve: how to balance productivity with resilience and growth with accountability.

Making Supply Chains Accountable by Design

For nearly two decades at Ingredion, Utterback has avoided the trap of treating sustainability as a corporate initiative. His focus lies deeper in the infrastructure, procurement models and traceability systems that turn environmental and social goals into quantifiable results. As Senior Manager of Sustainability, he didn’t just promote best practices. He aligned global brands like PepsiCo and P&G with farm-level programs that reshaped how millions of tonnes of crops were grown, tracked and sourced.

Now, as Director of Global Sustainable Sourcing, he is guiding Ingredion toward a 2025 goal of achieving SAI FSA verification across its Tier 1 supply base. For him, verification is more than a badge. It proves that sustainability has moved from narrative to metric and from promise to practice.

A Technologist Who Shapes Policy

Well before ESG became a boardroom priority, Utterback was already designing systems that demanded accuracy from agricultural data. In his early years, he focused on identity preservation while managing specialty corn contracts worth over $100 million annually. It was a technical challenge then, but it later became essential for building supply chain transparency.

As Manager of Commodities Purchasing, he managed procurement for Ingredion’s US and Canadian operations. His work brought together logistics, budgeting and regulation in ways that rarely align neatly. What set him apart was efficiency and the ability to anticipate where structural stress would emerge next.

That same foresight now informs national policy conversations. Since 2019, he has served as Chair of the NGFA Crop Technology Committee, where he helps shape how the industry approaches biotechnology. In discussions on GMOs and gene editing, his stance avoids extremes. He works to create clear pathways for innovation that keep markets open, protect grower access and reduce downstream risk.

Redefining Leadership in Agriculture

Utterback has built systems that work consistently and deliberately in the background. The outcomes may not generate headlines, yet they drive real change; more precise traceability, fewer disruptions and more resilient sourcing.

Utterback’s work shows sustainability as a value system in a sector long driven by ambition but often lacking operational discipline. When growers, corporations and investors align around outcomes, we create resilient supply chains that can withstand disruption, meet customer demand and unlock shared progress.