What was your first job in the food industry and how did you come to work for Sainsbury’s? How did your career progress at the supermarket?

My first real experience of produce was in 1967 when I became a trainee buyer for Victor Values, which was subsequently taken over by Tesco.

I used to go into the stores themselves and do a range of different in-store jobs as part of my training, including running the warehouses, etc - and part of that was serving customers from the old-style produce counters. It was a wonderful product, and that gave me my first love of fresh produce.

In 1968, I joined Sainsbury’s as a trainee buyer in the bacon department. I worked through various positions, up to assistant buyer and then to buyer, through all different departments - sausages, pies, meat, etc.

Then in 1972, I was made deputy manager of the bacon department and in 1976 I became deputy manager of the produce division. Vegetables were my main area, but I had to visit New Covent Garden Market, so I did cover fruit too.

The biggest challenge was meeting the quality criteria. My first year was the year of the major drought, so it was a real baptism of fire, but it was a wonderful experience - it taught me so much and gave me a deep understanding of how we grow our produce in the UK.

I loved that role and did it for two and a half years, and then for the next few years I held a number of senior manager roles across all different departments.

In 1996, I was made director of produce, meat, bacon, poultry and frozen foods. It was wonderful to get produce back. I held that position until I retired in 2005.

At Sainsbury’s, I pioneered partnerships with farmers and growers and built the produce business until it became one of the supermarket’s biggest areas in terms of turnover.

I had an on-off relationship with fresh produce that started at an early age. It made a big impression on me and it was great to get it back at various stages in my career.

What made you decide to retire and what have you been up to since then?

After 40 years in the food industry, I decided it was time to step back and have a slightly easier life. My ambition was always to do a bit of consultancy and other kinds of work.

I set up my own business called ISSM Ltd, which is a family consultancy that my daughter is also involved with.

I already knew Guy Moreton and his recruitment and training business MorePeople when I left Sainsbury’s - he works with the floral industry and I had helped to develop the floral business at Sainsbury’s.

When I left, Guy and I agreed we would work together and help one another in the future. He was keen to get me involved in MorePeople but the business was in a stage of development and was not quite ready to take any big steps. So I carried on consulting part time.

Then in February 2008, Guy said he was ready to take a big step and bring me in as associate director.

Now I work flexibly, a combination of working from home, in the office and going to visit people.

What are your aims as associate director of MorePeople?

MorePeople has a lot of experienced people working there. The company’s reputation is there and I admire its values very much.

When you look at the objectives of the company going forward, my role fits in to develop the business and make sure MorePeople becomes the first choice for recruitment. In the produce and floral industries I would say it is already at that stage, but I want to expand that into new food areas.

The company’s expansion plans are important to me - spreading its wings beyond produce and floral and also into non-executive and higher level, executive recruitment. I know a lot of executives in the food industry so can add new dimensions to what Guy already knows.

MorePeople is looking to expand senior and executive appointments across all food industries - Peter Durose already does some of this for the company and I have been working with him.

MorePeople also operates training and leadership initiatives and we want to expand those. I believe I can add a dimension here, as I have had experience of this across all areas of food.

What I like about MorePeople is that all the recruiters are ex-industry people and are experts in their fields. They have all been there and done it, which gives them a greater understanding in picking the right person for the right job.

What particular attributes do you think your time at Sainsbury’s has equipped you with to work for a business such as MorePeople?

I have worked across the whole food chain so I understand the industry and the language of the industry. This gives a greater understanding and resolution to the way I do the job.

The other key issue I understand is managing a large group of people. I have had up to 400 people underneath me and then you have to understand what makes people tick and the best ways to get a lot out of them.

I have been through most problems and can see what may happen, so am in a position to offer advice about how to handle it.

I have a wealth of experience from Sainsbury’s and it has given me a great understanding of the food business and its financial and other challenges, which I believe will enable me in helping people move forward.

What challenges is a recruitment business such as MorePeople facing in today’s economic climate, and how can you weather these?

Today’s is a tough climate and it will be like this for a while. There are normally redundancies in a period like this and businesses will be looking to slim down in certain areas.

But a good business always needs top people - it is just that at the moment, delivering good quality and value to our clients will be harder than usual.

For the people we are looking to place, it may be that they want to change jobs but can’t sell their house and move, for example. It is our job to find ways to help them overcome that.

In a tough climate, one of the key things is to motivate, train and develop your existing staff. If you do that during the hard times, they will appreciate it. Spend money on those you already have and that goes a long way to keeping them there.

The training and development parts of our business will become more pertinent for MorePeople over the next few months.

There are lots of ways we can help people through a very difficult year and MorePeople has to rise to those challenges.

But we will not place someone for the sake of it - it has to be about maintaining our reputation.

So what does MorePeople have in the pipeline?

We have some big marketing campaigns lined up for director and non-executive recruitment and I am trying to push greater awareness of that.

We are also planning to enhance our training packages to help people get the best out of their teams, by adding new ideas and dimensions to their businesses.

Where do you think the fresh produce industry is heading, both short and long term?

The first thing we all know is that it will be tough and price-focused.

What I love about produce is that it looks fantastic and is healthy - it will therefore have a great future. There will be challenges on pricing and the environment, but in general people are eating more produce and experiencing different tastes.

Schools will be a key element of getting kids to eat more healthily, and plenty more can be done in that regard.

Further challenges for the industry will be to use crops more efficiently in order to bring costs down. During the 1976 drought, English Cox apples came out very small, below EU grades. It was a huge crop that we could do nothing with. So I came up with the idea of a bagged offer, giving great value at a sensible price for farmers - and we shifted the whole crop in six weeks.

Using the whole crop is such an important thing now and there are other ways we can get costs down as well.

Produce has great potential and still has everything going for it, especially compared to some other food items where health is becoming more of an issue. If we get the schools on board, then produce has an absolutely brilliant future.