I numeri chiave
12 Months
5 Roles inserted
The Client
Solina Group is a European leader in food ingredients headquartered in Paris, boasting 5,000 employees and over 40 production sites worldwide. The group has carved out its reputation by developing innovative solutions for spice blends, marinades, soups, sauces, and food texturizing ingredients, serving both B2B and B2C markets across three main sectors: coatings, liquids, and dry products.
Specifically, the collaboration with Reverse focused mainly on the German subsidiary Hagesüd, a historic company founded in 1881 and acquired by the group in 2020, operating in the meat processing segment with 140 employees at its Hemmingen site near Stuttgart. This company acts as a strategically important hub for Solina’s European operations, with several employees working across the entire group in Central Europe.
Recruitment challenges in Food & Beverage: the Solina case
Solina Group, during its growth and organizational structuring phase, experienced a critical moment typical of the food industry recruitment challenges: the pressing need to quickly find highly specialized skills in a market characterized by a shortage of qualified candidates.
In particular, for commercial roles, the main challenge was the dual expertise required: candidates needed to have both deep technical knowledge of the food sector and strong commercial and interpersonal skills to handle clients who are often very technical and demanding.
Jasmin Funk, Solina’s People and Culture Manager, perfectly summed up this challenge for the sales roles they needed to fill: "It’s tough for our business to find someone who understands technical aspects like food, meat, and spices, but who also has the sales gene or the charisma to sell. You need both skillsets to thrive in our sector."
For technical and operational roles, the challenges took on a different but equally complex character. The food industry demands a delicate balance between highly specific sector knowledge and transversal skills that ensure operational versatility. This is compounded by a scarcity of profiles with deep vertical experience, made worse by the ever-changing regulatory landscape shaping this sector.
All these structural difficulties in the sector became especially critical for Solina when multiple urgent needs arose simultaneously. The turning point came when, as Jasmin Funk recounts: "We had many open positions at that time. We were overloaded, and some roles were critical for our operations." But the challenge went beyond just volume: some searches required absolute confidentiality.
How Reverse made a difference
Faced with these multifaceted challenges, through ongoing dialogue with the Solina group, we developed an intervention strategy that went well beyond simple job matching.
Deep business understanding
The first step was to fully immerse ourselves in Solina’s reality, understanding not only the necessary technical skills but also the specifics of the market segment, the target clientele, and the competitive dynamics. In food sector recruitment, each company brings its own unique dynamics requiring a thorough analysis to identify the best fit profiles.
Michele Klingler explains the importance of this approach: "It wasn’t enough to look for candidates with generic experience in the food sector. We had to grasp the specifics of their market segment, the target clientele, and competitive dynamics. Only then could we evaluate whether a candidate, beyond technical skills, could truly fit in and contribute to success in that specific context."
A selection process that goes beyond the CV
One aspect that Solina particularly valued was our approach to the initial briefing. Jasmin Funk highlights the difference: "The way the initial meetings are set up is very different from the usual because I don’t just send out a job ad that anyone can read online. We really talk about the role, delving into implicit aspects. If I can describe the current team composition (professional background, personality, dynamics), I can understand if a candidate’s character can gel well—a factor as crucial to me as technical skills."
This approach allowed us to evaluate candidates holistically, going beyond just hard skills verification to explore behavioral aspects and cultural fit, which proved crucial for long-term success.
Strategic flexibility based on market data
A significant moment came when the analysis we conducted using Job Reputation Analysis, a proprietary market mapping tool, showed that the initial requirements for some positions needed to be reconsidered. The analysis of the German market revealed that candidates with all the desired qualifications were often either too expensive or too senior for what the roles actually required.
From this perspective, Solina immediately demonstrated exceptional strategic flexibility in embracing these market insights and adapting its recruitment strategy accordingly. A concrete example of this flexibility occurred with the Health Safety and Environment Advisor position. As Jasmin Funk explains: "At first, we believed we needed someone exclusively from the food sector, with specific skills in hygiene, food fraud, and all regulatory aspects. However, during the search process, we realized these requirements were perhaps too restrictive. So, we broadened the search to candidates from the industrial sector, and in the end, we found an excellent HSE consultant who brought different but very valuable skills to our operation."
Collaborative Creation of Innovative Solutions
Finally, a key concept that has defined the partnership between Reverse and Solina from the get-go has been the consultative approach, which clearly sets itself apart from merely presenting candidates in response to specific requests. The continuous, strategic dialogue we established with Solina allowed us to identify opportunities beyond the initial needs: rather than dismissing outstanding candidates who seemed "overqualified" for certain roles, we worked together to rethink the roles themselves, creating innovative solutions that made the most of the available market talent and better addressed the company's real business needs.
As Michèle Klingler recounts: "We had several meetings to analyze the situation together. The market was showing us profiles with more experience than required for a field sales role, but they were too qualified and expensive for that position. Instead of discarding them, we collaborated to see if it wasn’t more strategic to create a different role that leveraged those higher skills."
And it was precisely this collaborative approach that led to the creation of a Key Account Manager position for Hagesüd, designed to capitalize on the highest level of commercial experience available in the market.
The Proprietary Dashboard: Technology Serving Collaboration
One tool that proved particularly effective for the Solina group was our proprietary dashboard. Jasmin Funk describes the impact of this platform: "The dashboard system used at Reverse is something I’d never seen before in years of working with recruiting firms. It lets you compare candidates in real time, instantly see if they meet salary expectations and our requirements. But the most useful part is how it organizes information into clear categories: essential requirements, desirable traits, and bonus qualifications. This approach makes decision-making way more objective and transparent."
Unlike standard software, our dashboard was developed specifically to support complex decision-making processes where cultural fit is as important as technical skills.
Collaboration results
The collaboration between Reverse and Solina produced measurable results that prove the effectiveness of the approach taken, which can be summed up in two key concepts: strategic partnership and positive candidate feedback.
Positions successfully filled and ongoing dialogue with both the company and candidates
During the collaboration, we successfully closed five strategic positions that highlight the variety and complexity of challenges tackled. Among these stand out the Local Brand Manager, a cross-functional role actively working with European market teams; the HSE Advisor, for whom we successfully expanded the search from the food sector to manufacturing, finding highly valuable complementary skills; and the Head of Sales, a strategically crucial figure for the Solina group.
To date, all hired candidates are still with the company: a testament to the effectiveness of an approach based on continuous dialogue and personalized support from the first interview to onboarding. The feedback from the new hires confirms not only their professional suitability but, above all, their alignment with the corporate culture. Jasmin Funk sums up Reverse’s approach by saying: “It feels like the work is based not just on quantity but really quality and the relationship built from start to finish of the selection process, all the way through to the candidate’s entry into the company.”
And this is an approach that creates tangible value for all parties involved: the company achieves successful hires, candidates find opportunities aligned with their aspirations, and over time a strategic partnership rooted in mutual trust is built.
Evolution Towards a Strategic Partnership
Another key insight to date concerns the evolution of the relationship: from transactional to strategic. Jasmin Funk told us that "nowadays, when we have a position to fill, especially if it’s strategic or complex, our first thought is Reverse. We no longer consider multiple agencies like we used to – we found a partner who understands our needs and knows how to navigate our sector, so why look elsewhere?"
In short: what makes Reverse’s approach different according to the Solina group
Strategic consulting, not just sourcing
Unlike traditional agencies that focus mainly on candidate sourcing, our consultative approach has helped Solina optimize their hiring strategy. The key differences Jasmin highlights are: "the dashboard, the attention to the company and its needs even before the search begins, and the follow-up afterwards. When working with Reverse, it feels like a quality-driven effort, not quantity-driven."
The perfect balance between technology and human connection
While technology played a crucial role through the dashboard system, success was built on strong personal relationships and trust. The ability to provide real-time market intelligence proved invaluable throughout the collaboration, always delivering accurate feedback on salary issues and strategic advice grounded in solid data.
When Jasmin told us about the relationship with Michèle, she described an instant “click,” emphasizing how important it was from the start to find a partner who understood their dynamics and could adapt to their needs—both technical and cultural.
Strategic conclusions
The experience of Solina Group highlights how recruitment in specialized sectors requires specific methodological approaches that go beyond standard generalist recruiting practices. Combining sector expertise, strategic flexibility, and smart use of technology can transform recruitment from a cost center into a strategic lever for business growth.
For HR managers operating in similar contexts, key success factors include the willingness to invest time in the strategic phase of defining requirements, flexibility in adapting those requirements based on market evidence, integrating technical and cultural assessments into selection processes, and developing strategic partnerships with specialized recruiters who act as consultants as well as suppliers.
Michele Klingler sums up the approach that made these results possible: “It wasn’t just about conducting a search, but truly collaborating as partners: understanding needs together, responding flexibly to market data, and adapting the approach when necessary. The Solina Group proved to be the ideal partner for this approach—always open to dialogue and discussion. This willingness to listen, combined with genuine collaboration, creates the perfect conditions to find the best solution and generate lasting value for all.”
The end result is a recruitment approach that not only fills vacant positions but actively contributes to building stronger teams and long-term business competitiveness.
This is especially crucial for companies like Solina, who, as Jasmin Funk describes, have "a very modern culture, are growing fast, and are bold and ambitious, with a customer-centric, innovative, and highly focused approach": for organizations with such traits, strategic recruitment isn’t just an option but a competitive advantage to support accelerated growth and maintain operational excellence.
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