Come on, where are you all? They say that a majority of veg buyers are traders and not strategic procurement specialists. Who are 'they' and are 'they' right? There is real pressure for food retailers to source their veggies from developing countries and of course from good old Blighty which takes skill, knowledge, expertise and strategic planning. Yes, we like a skilled negotiator who doesn't shy away from challenging dialogue with suppliers. Surely though, if a French bean takes 60 days from planting to harvest in Kenya and then a further 48 hours before the likes of you and I can take if off the shelf in Sainsburys, the Buyer needs more than just a "good deal". Don't they also need to understand the challenges faced by the grower, crop programmes, seasonality, customer demand, shelf life and on and on. So, help me out here you Fresh Produce buyers and tell me about your specialist, niche and sophisticated skills. Silence isn't always golden or delicious!
July 2008 Archives
Fact - it's common practice for graduates who have been fortunate to have had an industrial placement for however short a time to be interviewed before those who have not ... no matter how good their grade!
Every graduate we have met who has taken part in an industrial placement considers the experience invaluable for a number of reasons. It has allowed them to put their studies into practice and to experience first hand the demands of working in the food manufacturing sector. And in many cases it allowed the graduate to decide which career path to follow; technical, manufacturing, process or NPD.
One thing for sure though is that many students have found it an challenging task to secure a placement in the first place - the main reason they are told is due to lack of resource. Catch twenty-two time as we need to encourage graduates into the food industry, get them excited and involved early on, showing them that the food manufacturing sector can be a highly rewarding career with long term opportunities.
We all are aware the pool of talent for the food industry is tight, therefore employers need to be more realistic, if you want 'the cream of the crop' you're going to have to get involved ... as little as a month long placement gives graduates the edge ... so spare some time and invest for the future and those employers that do will have the best graduates to pick from.
What is happening to our traditional butchers and other independent food retailers? They are rapidly disappearing and so is the sense of community in towns and villages.
Why? The stranglehold of giant supermarket chains increasingly tightens as they open more and more "express" and "convenient" stores into these areas.
I can see this with my own eyes. Within a two mile radius of my home in Cheshire we have three "mini" stores opened by the big multiples at petrol stations!!!
The point is that the role of the local butcher is often overlooked - they are a key part of the community, they are often family-run businesses, they generally sell high-quality meat and the staff are in many cases highly experienced and knowledgeable about their products.
I think people can feel more secure when they pick up a packet where the meat is portioned up and priced, but do you really know what they are buying and is it really the best?
I guess most people think a chicken is a chicken and beef is beef, and I am not suggesting that the meat you get is below standard, it isn't, but there has to be a reason why the supermarkets can reduce the prices.
We have become so used to seeing well-packaged meat products, that have good colour, that is all the same size and is nice and plump, but there is a reason for that - they are mass produced and are on the shelf as quickly as possible. Yes they meet all the required regulations and can rightly declare free range and organic and they are readily endorsed by the celebrity chefs but surely there is nothing better than having meat that has been nurtured and matured in the traditional way that makes it tender and taste better and also can give you traceability.
A good butcher will be able to tell you not only about the age and cut of the meat but will also be able to tell you about its provenance as well as being able to pass on their knowledge about such matters as cooking times, cuts and menu suggestions - how often do you get that at the supermarket counter?
Supermarkets have come someway to stocking a greater variety but in these times of "watching the pennies" there are so many traditional cuts that are undervalued and under rated that are sold by your local butcher: oxtail, neck-end, breast of lamb, brisket, belly pork and shin beef, these are all fabulous flavoursome cuts that are great on a budget and you won't find in your supermarket.
Treat yourself to the succulent steak or Sunday joint that has been hung and tenderised correctly, the flavour is just not comparable to something vac-packed in a wrapper.
I am not saying never use your supermarket, but don't let your community go, support your local butcher, make friends with them, take their knowledge and you might actually expand your diet as well as save some money in your purse.
There may be trouble ahead... or not as the case may be..... all the more reason why leading food and drink manufacturers are coming out fighting and looking for top class managers to see them through a period of uncertainty.
Food Britain backs up the positive vibe, reporting that food exports went up by 9.1% in 2007 to £11.45bn and predicting that this would rise to £12.8bn in 2008. For the first time in five years we have food and drink exports outstripping imports.
The results for 2007 were achieved in spite of the resurgence of foot and mouth disease, which hit meat exports last year. The best growth sectors were meat (worth £864m), followed by dairy at £805m, and the cereals (bulk cereals, breakfast cereals and bakery products) at £1.36bn, and drinks (£4.1bn).
If we are entering difficult times, a career in food and drink is probably a good place to be!
I was inspired to see the great support at the 15th Annual Craft Guild of Chefs Awards, which took place at the Royal Courts of Justice recently and was proud that the "Check On" Chef Division of Focus Management was sponsoring the Development Chef category. It is truly inspirational to see so much support and pride for the industry's craft skills. It goes to show that cooking is certainly not just a job; it's a genuine passion that takes tremendous commitment and dedication and I applaud the Craft Guild of Chefs as it encourages this from entry level to senior management.
This year's winner was Tony Murphy from UK catering and support company Eurest and as head of our Check On division, which specialises in finding development chefs, I would like to send him my personal congratulations.
The Craft Guild of Chefs Awards are the chefs' 'Oscars', designed to recognise and reward the leading talent working in kitchens all across the UK.
The role of the development chef is one of the most dynamic and exciting in the whole food sector. Chefs we have placed are developing hundreds of new recipes each year for manufacturers who supply own label products for the major retailers like Tesco and Marks & Spencer.
The Craft Guild of Chefs Awards have become a major industry event with over 500 culinary professionals in attendance under one roof for a glittering ceremony which is a fixture of the food sector calendar. The nominees need not be a member of the Craft Guild, just exceptional professionals, excelling in their chosen field.
I'm not sure how many of you have caught the Twitter bug, but it really is strangely addictive. When pushed to describe it to people, it's difficult to know where to begin. Telling people "its micro blogging - instant and mobile" and that "you follow and are followed by people, with whom you're able to share ideas and links" just doesn't do it justice.
The cutest way I've heard it described is by Wired who described it as "almost like ESP...a Social Sixth Sense".
So, why are we talking about Twitter on the Food Job Blog? Well, product development chef recruitment specialists Check On, are rolling out (what we believe to be) a UK first, by launching a 'real time' jobs & news update service via Twitter for anyone looking for work as a development chef / work in new product development (NPD).
Why? Well, for one thing if you're working in a traditional cheffing environment, you're unlikely to want to sit down in front of computer after a split shift. http://www.Twitter.com/CheckOn will make it easy (and free) for you to keep updated however suits you: via the web, RSS, Instant Messenger or by SMS on your mobile. You'll also be able to communicate with Check On consultants and your peers ( if you want to ). It might - whisper it - even be fun :-)
If you're signing up for the CheckOn service however, we thought it might be interesting to have a look at some other cool things to do with Twitter...
First, you need to have some friends. Once you've found people you want to follow - the best way to do that is by checking out the followers of people you're interested in - If you follow them, and you've got something interesting to say, they'll then follow you. And you're off - multi layered conversations with your own community, delivered in realtime via mobile, IM, facebook ... in 140 characters or less. There really is no substitute for giving it a try......
The Guardian recently wrote a great piece on How to get the best out of Twitter
For those of you who can't be bothered to link or missed it, here's some cool twitter tools you might want to check out:
Finding peoplewww.Whoshouldifollow.com
www.Twitdir.com - directory
www.Twitterholic.com - the top users and accountsSearching and organising
www.Summize.com - search for a word or phrase across the entire Twitter feed.
www.Quotably.com creates threads of discussions between people.
www.Terraminds.com - search engine, for users or phrases.
www.Tweetscan.com - search by user and time.
www.Twitterlocal.net finds twitterers near you.Sharing
www.Twitthis.com,- lets people looking at your site or blog share the URL via Twitter.
www.Twitturly.com - what's being most linked-to and talked about?
www.Tweetmeme.com - what sort of topics are being discussed?Visualise
www.Twittervision.com - real-time Google Maps mashup showing where tweets are being posted.
www.Twitterverse.com - tag clouds
www.Twittearth.com - visualisation of tweets, put onto a spiralling globe.
www.Tweetwheel.com - which of your friends are already following each other?And..
http://pipes.yahoo.com/ouseful/tweetspeech - Yahoo Pipes converts (incoming) tweets to speech, playable via RSS.
www.Twittersnooze.com - hit the "snooze button", briefly, on verbose friends.
http://www.wp.korelab.com/yet-another-twitter-badge-twitter-balloon - your tweets superimposed on an image of your choosing.
www.twerpscan.com, avoid followers who befriend everyone: may be spammers.
See you on Twitter!
Always galling, isn't it, when politicians exhibit double standards. When the G8 sit down to discuss not only rocketing fuel prices, but also food shortages and spiralling costs, it is inevitable I suppose that their multi-course banquet that follows would garner adverse press comment. We are all being criticised (rightly so) for throwing away too much food each and every week. This is becoming a major issue not only across global arguments about poverty versus consumer excess, but also on an individual basis for every household. How many bags of prepared salad are discarded unopened? How many yogurt pots thrown away because they are one day out of life? Far too many obviously, all accounting for waste of food, packaging and money on a massive scale. However, do we really expect world leaders to sit down to a parsimonious and frugal spread? Well, actually on reflection perhaps we should! Lead by example please.
So I can do manufacturing. It's just making widgets isn't it? That's what you would think. So why do so many people find the transition into food manufacturing from a non-food environment so difficult?
From a client perspective it's frustrating finding good people, then training them only for them to leave shortly after. As a candidate it's frustrating that food manufacturers won't entertain people without FMCG experience.
So how do we overcome this impasse? Maybe, employers need to be more open-minded in view of the limited talent pool and use "best manufacturing practices" as criteria rather than FMCG experience. Also, candidates need to be better at translating their skills base into meeting the food manufacturing needs. Perhaps a combination of the two.
Anyone out there wanting to work in food manufacturing who wants to comment?
And about time too that one our corporate giants takes the lead and stands up to this brutal dictator. Though of course, my heart goes out to the Zimbabwe farmers/people who are struggling enough as it is to survive without a significant avenue of income being closed to them. But surely if there was ever an argument for looking at the bigger picture this must be it... just a shame Zimbabwe doesn't provide the UK with a different 'fuel' supply - other than produce and fish - then maybe our politicians would have taken the lead instead...
Come on my nation's leading food retailers: M&S, Sainsbury's, Waitrose, Morrisons, etc...isn't it all about provenance and 'clean labels' these day in the food supply chain? As to clean labels, we all know it means no additives and e-numbers, so how about no brutality too?
Think about the last person you hired. Did you really take the time to select an individual who was hungry and ambitious, not just for a new job but to learn about a new sector where they could build their career? Or did you quickly flick through the CVs and pick the candidate who was a close match to that of the incumbent?
Known in the trade as "pigeon-holing", this may be a quick solution that makes everyone round the interview table feel comfortable, but is it really in the interests of your business to opt for the same breed time and again? What about the fresh talent that brings new ideas, invigorates your environment, drives change and challenges the status quo.
Clearly, there have to be transferable skills and experiences for the match between client and candidate to take place. Also, if you have a position to fill in your business you want a fast, seamless transition and for the new recruit to hit the ground running.
So try challenging your normal recruitment processes. The next time you are short listing for interview, take a bold step and fill one of those slots with a different animal - you may be surprised. Who knows, they could be the one to make a difference; that breath of fresh air you need in what we expect will be demanding times. If nothing else, at least you won't have to interview pigeons all day!
