Distribution Manager
Gibsons Food

Andy S

00:00:02 My name’s Andy S, I’m the distribution manager for a company called Gibson’s Foods. Very simply, a distribution manager is responsible for transporting the finished products, in our case chilled sandwiches, to the customer’s depots nationwide.

00:00:23 I was a bit worried as to what I would do after university because I didn’t really have any clear plans at that point and was lucky enough to go back to a small industrial firm that I’d worked for in the summer vacations basically just to tide me over until I guess I made up my mind what I wanted to be and what I wanted to do.

00:00:47 I have to be very grateful to the boss of the firm at that time who took me to one side and had a chat with me and said, “You know, you’re very good at this job but because we are a small firm we really can’t offer you anymore opportunities but have you ever considered looking at the role of a production manager?” And they helped me really fill in the first application form that I completed for a production management trainee with part of Associated British Food.

00:01:25 I applied for the job which was based in Ashford in Kent. I was obviously successful in gaining the trainee manager’s position and can remember quite vividly that it was quite a scary day, really. It had meant obviously leaving home again, travelling down to southern England some 250 miles away not knowing anyone in the business. It was a bit daunting at first but I did thoroughly enjoy the 12 months that I was down there in Kent.

00:02:03 I was asked to take up a similar position within the same company but at one of their sites in Wiltshire and from there I moved to Cambridge with another part of Associated British Foods but it was a step up, it was a promotion and I spent probably about four years there but unfortunately my father died and after that I suddenly decided that perhaps I really wanted to move back to where I was born and I’d been brought up and after a while was able to secure a job more locally based. It was probably the biggest turning point of my life, I would say, that potentially if he was still alive I potentially wouldn’t have been here, that I might have carried on moving around, you know, different parts of the country.

00:02:58 The high point of my career was probably gaining the position that I’m now in. I felt really quite proud that people within the business thought I was capable of doing the role and actually identifying what was required for the role within this business.

00:03:19 Outside of work there’s my major hobby is rallying. Unfortunately, I don’t earn enough to actually rally a car myself but a group of friends that I’ve known for years are all interested in cars and rallying and we go to stand in forests for days on end generally at the weekends watching rally cars. But would aspire someday to possibly have enough money to actually race a rally car but at the moment have other commitments. ENDS