Sarasin leaves AFFI for FMI

American Frozen Food Institute (AFFI) Chairman Jim Matthews announced that Leslie Sarasin, AFFI president and CEO and a 19-year organization veteran, resigned effective Oct. 31, 2008. Sarasin will assume similar titles at the Food Marketing Institute, a larger Arlington, Va.-based organization representing the nation's supermarket retailers and a vast majority of AFFI members' retail customers. AFFI board members named Robert Garfield, senior vice president for public policy, as interim president. AFFI, McLean, Va., also will establish a candidate evaluation council with hopes of naming a successor CEO by December 1, Matthews said.