Wholesale Controller
Vestey Holdings

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My name’s Howard.

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I’m the wholesale controller for Vestey Foods UK

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based in Hampshire.

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It’s a bit of a multifunctional job,

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but basically I sell products – foodstuff –

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to end user pubs, restaurants and maybe your school or college.

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So the products that we that we focus on in

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Vestey primarily are cooked meat products,

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whole fish and seafood. Best things.

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Creativity.

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International travel.

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I may have to travel over to into France, into Bulgaria or Poland,

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or I may even have to go over to Thailand or into China.

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Worst things.

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Now, that’s a tough one, actually.

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I enjoy my job quite a lot.

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From one week to the next

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my calendar could change. We could be

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tripping into London and seeing some of the end user restaurants.

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So the Frankie and Benny’s, the Chiquito’s, and we could be seeing

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those culinary chefs and seeing what they’re wanting,

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what their next menu review will look like, understanding what they’ve got,

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and then bringing that request back to the business

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so we can then try and help source that product. Once it’s been manufactured,

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we can then take it to our customer for them to review and

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see if this is the sort of concept idea that they’re looking for.

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The role I do now is a more cross-function

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of development, process and sales as well.

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So I could be contacting them, seeing

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if they’re the current product that we’ll sell in to them,

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is – that they’re happy with it and the pricing is right,

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and when their next order is.

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School was tough.

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I was probably the geeky kid in the school, I spent a lot of time

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studying and actually put in and put in a lot of focus in on school

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and it’s really important. I think certainly the foundation

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that I attained, even within a working class council estate

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and standard comprehensive school, was the great grounding for my career now.

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I did well at GCSEs. When I was studying my A-levels, I did mathematics,

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maths and stats, I did geography and I did chemistry.

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I didn’t do great at them. I was dead-set on being a geologist

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– that didn’t work out as planned.

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And I ended up doing a foundation degree, in food.

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I came out with a honours degree in food science.

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And actually things have turned out great.

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I’m over the moon with the career that I’ve had.

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Mathematics – it becomes key really because you’ve got to ensure

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that the recipes are the same, manufacturing processes are the same.

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When it comes to be on a mass produce scale, it has to be consistent.

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People want it – when they try something they like

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on the first occasion, that they’ll get the repeat culinary experience.

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So my first job I worked

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for, Next, the high street clothing chain.

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I used to do that on a on a Saturday and Sunday, but that was great

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because it gave me a sort of interaction with general people,

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and appreciate how different characters and how you could talk to them.

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Second job, I worked for Mr. Kipling’s – weighing up ingredients in a production facility

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through the summer holidays when I was at university. I left university,

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Did a world travel after that,

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I was ten years with a

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food company.

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I then took a role with a ready meal company

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which is dedicated to Sainsbury’s.

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I was then headhunted and encouraged to move to Vestey.

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Don’t feel that

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if you’ve come from

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a working class environment that actually you will always be downtrodden.

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You won’t – if you work hard,

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if you’re willing to put the effort in,

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try and do your best at school,

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try to develop the skills that you’ve got, you will be a success.