The BSA welcomes a new chair.

Robert Potts, head of insight and strategy at Greencore, has been elected as the new incoming chair of the BSA. Here, he gives his thoughts on the direction for the association, and the industry in general, as well as revealing some of his background in sandwich manufacturing.

SANDWICH PEDIGREE

Robert Potts has been in the food to go industry for more than 15 years, rstly in the sandwich and pizza division at Hazlewood Foods until it was taken over by Greencore Group in 2001. Starting as a product manager in a small marketing team, he progressed his marketing career working in many category and insight roles with a wide variety of customers, including major multi’s, convenience, forecourt, high street, discount stores and co ee shops.

His current role is head of insight and strategy in the Food to Go Business Unit. Prior to his career with Greencore, Robert Potts rst started with S&A Foods in chilled ready meals and also gained valuable retail experience working for Morrisons at their head o ce in Bradford.

PLANS FOR THE BSA

“All businesses in the food to go industry, large and small have been massively impacted by Covid and there are many other challenges that the whole industry will need to navigate through including Brexit, HFSS, labour shortages, in ation, sustainability and our impact on the environment to name a few,” says Robert Potts.

“The BSA do an amazing job of representing and acting as the voice for the industry, lobbying the government and key bodies to ensure the industry is listened to and workable solutions are found.”

On his election to chair of the BSA, he says: “For me, it’s about continuing the great work the BSA does, to help build recovery of the industry as we continue to deal with Covid and build on the progress that has been made. Hopefully any further lockdowns are avoided and with the impact the vaccination programme appears to be making, mobility levels and con dence to leave the home will return, providing important triggers for buying food to go.”

Speaking about the pandemic, he adds: “The impact of Covid has been well documented. It has had a tremendous impact on many businesses, particularly in food to go, and Greencore has not been exempt. However, the way in which the business responded has been incredible. Our people have worked incredibly hard, in very di cult circumstances – they are real food heroes.

“Greencore has always been an agile business and this really came to the fore over the past few years, and we have seen our people do some incredible things. We worked to three core principles during the pandemic: Keeping our people safe, keeping Britain fed and protecting our business – these principles have helped us to navigate the challenges of the past two years.”

STAFF SHORTAGES

On the subject of ongoing sta shortages, he continues: “Similar to other labour-intensive businesses, we have felt the impact of a tightening of the labour market. The real key is to ensure that the business is an attractive place to work for potential colleagues and that we retain the colleagues that we already have.

“Our team has worked incredibly hard to help support them and to ensure that we are able to attract new colleagues. The whole supply-chain has been a ected by all the disruption and we are working closely with our suppliers to minimise any impacts.”

THE FUTURE

Robert Potts is con dent about the future and says: “There are few industries/categories of the same scale and breadth as food to go. It’s proven to be resilient in the past and I’m fully con dent that it will return, but as ever, it must continue to evolve to stay relevant and fully meet changing tastes and needs of consumers and how they want to shop.

“Greencore is absolutely on it in terms of sustainability and packaging speci cally. We have recently published our second standalone sustainability report Better Future Plan and last year we launched the world’s rst plasticfree sandwich skillet as a trial with three major customers and by 2030, Greencore will achieve parity on its product development of animal protein versus plant-rich alternatives.”

ONE LAST THING…

In his spare time, Robert has been volunteering to support the Covid vaccination programme.

other labour-intensive businesses, we have felt the impact of a tightening of ensure that the business is an attractive place to work for potential colleagues and that we retain the colleagues that ensure that we are able to attract new has been a ected by all the disruption