Northern Foods Plc.

In April 2003, I took a functional move into Operations. I wanted to gain experience of managing people and learn more about the business after all, producing food is what we do! I started in Operations as a Production Supervisor at Fenland, and then I took a site move to Gunstones Bakery in July 2004, where I was a Section Manager. At this point in my career, my experience in operations and as a technologist, coupled with a site move, had given me wide experience and good overall business knowledge. My next role was in Continuous Improvement, reporting to a member of the senior team at Gunstones. This role gave me a great opportunity to learn tools and techniques in the field of lean manufacturing, training and coaching. It was during this time that we started work on improving our NPD process at the site. Over time, this led to my involvement in the SPICE process. SPICE is an innovation process that is designed to improve the introduction of new products by introducing and delivering the best ideas at the right time, with the correct resources.

I joined Northern Foods in January 2006, as Manufacturing Manager working within the Bakery division at Fox's Biscuits Kirkham. Prior to joining Northern Foods I worked in the crisps and snacks sector undertaking a number of roles including planning manager, national account manager and manufacturing controller.

After a period of time in the packing halls of the then Ross Young's factory, I was rewarded with a full time position away from the burger packing and into the meat preparation area. Down the years I have worked on virtually every piece of machinery in the factory, from burger forming machinery, bowl choppers and mincing kits to seasoning dusters and cooking vessels. While I was quite happy working on the production side of things I was constantly looking at ways of progressing my career, which I did at quite regular intervals. In December 1996 a position became available within our Quality Assurance (QA) department, I applied and was successful. I learnt a greater understanding of the business as a whole during my time in this position and enjoyed the responsibility of policing the factory and championing greater quality of our products. While working in QA, Northern Foods acquired the site and I also worked as a raw materials auditor which gave me a wide knowledge of the products coming onto site and built strong relationships with suppliers.

Tony Hobson was appointed as Chairman to the Board on 24 May 2007. Tony is also a Director of Cenkos Securities plc which is admitted to AIM. He was previously Group Finance Director of Legal & General Group plc for fourteen years retiring in 2001 ; and the Senior Independent Director of Thames Water plc, prior to its acquisition by RWE in 2000. He is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Darden Graduate School of Business, University of Virginia.