It’s a North-east culinary empire that began with a solitary veggie-friendly pie 30 years ago.
Quorn is a huge household name, even beating Heinz Ketchup and Doritos in a definitive list of the UK’s biggest food brands back in 2013.
And where just a few products once sat in shops, a range of up to 150 is now crafted by the staff at Stokesley to sell in the UK and 14 countries worldwide – and not just in supermarkets.
Driving the 300-plus team to make such massive achievements is chief executive Kevin Brennan, a veritable turnaround king who is rather adept at changing firms’ fortunes.
He’s been part of firms that gave us Mumm Champagne, Wolf Blass new world wines and Carex liquid soap.
And before taking up his post at Quorn he helped globalise Kellogg’s Special K, spearheading its transformation from a healthy breakfast cereal to a bestselling brand with a whole range of spin-off products including tasty breakfast bars.
Taking a great, yet widely undiscovered, product and transforming it into an item the general public will clamour for requires a great amount of technical economic skill and knowledge – and that’s something Nottingham-born Kevin has always had an interest in.
As a teenager, he was heavily influenced by his father who always worked for himself, as a driver instructor and taxi driver amongst other professions.
After studying economics in sixth form, he gained an economics degree at York University. Through the milk rounds he went straight into a marketing job at Beechams, now part of GSK, to work on brand management, before hankering for home in the North.
“I got on well there and did a variety of jobs but I didn’t want to live in London. I didn’t come from a wealthy family and was happy just earning what I needed. And I didn’t like London,” he recalled.
After moving back up North with his wife to Manchester, to work for PZ Cussins, he worked on getting the public into shower gels and liquid soap Carex at a time when solid soap was found in every home.
A growing DIY trend to install showers in homes aided the growth, and the job took him to China.
Together with his wife and then nine-month-old son Seamus, Kevin moved to Qingdao in China for three years in 1996, before the country’s economy boomed.
“It’s a fantastic city now with more Starbucks than Stokesley has, but it was very different then.
“You couldn’t get butter but there was no milk or cheese, so for the first year we had a 90% Chinese diet which was great and we thoroughly enjoyed it.
“My son was the first white, Western child people had seen and he had strawberry blond hair – he used to get passed around like royalty.
“I was there for three years. It took a nano-second to say yes to the job when I was offered it and it was fantastic both personally and professionally.
Conducting business in China was tough, however, and despite building up a solid washing-up liquid factory business, a financial crisis in Russia and South East Asia in 1999 hit the firm.
Returning to the UK to join Kellogg’s, he was keen to take on the challenge of turning niche product Special K into a global brand.
He began by spearheading the two-week Drop a Dress Size challenge, but then looked at other ways of getting a greater market share, instructing teams to research and develop new and innovative products for consumers.
He became chief executive of Quorn Foods three years ago, when Exponent Private Equity carried out an MBO of the company’s previous owners Premier Foods, in a £205m deal.
Kevin was working for Premier at the time and could see that the Quorn brand was ripe was expansion.
Premier knew they had to fix the Quorn business but financial constraints meant they knew they had to sell it. Exponent became involved, with Kevin joining them to work on the management buy-out.
“I was amazed how good the product was,” he said. “It tasted far better than a rival product in the US but the public didn’t realise what it was.”
With Exponent’s support and Kevin’s expertise, millions has been invested into the business, into research and development, marketing, factory and machinery upgrades, to help Quorn Foods realise its full potential.
When running at full capacity the two fermenters in Billingham produce 84 tonnes of the microprotein a day, the vats then sent to Stokesley where further processes turn it into the myriad products, such as Best Ever Mince, Best Ever Sausages, Chicken Style Fillets and Chicken Style Pieces, which are then sold in the UK and in 15 international markets.
From this summer a third fermenter will also be up and running, the result of a £30m investment programme ultimately creating around 400 jobs.
The company spent £15m on advertising and new product development in 2012 and 2013, and a further £6m on an advertising campaign starring Olympic hero Mo Farah. That investment is set to continue.
Only last week the firm announced it is investing £40m into the business to fuel further growth following a record year in sales last year, which saw turnover top £150m.
• Arrive 8am
• Review daily sales/weekly production and food industry news
• Meeting with various functions e.g. sales, finance, logistics, procurement on a monthly cycle
• Regular store visits to review fixture
• At least one lunch per week at Quorn tasting
• Regularly disrupted by international trips to see our business, which spans the world, from US to Australia
• Finish typically at 7pm, evening mix of tennis/running, relax and currently working through West Wing box set.
No comments:
Post a Comment