Ashby hangs up his berries

After a career spanning more than 40 years in the produce industry, Bill Ashby has announced his intention to retire at the end of 2007.

The last decade has been spent building up the UK soft-fruit marketing firm Alconeras with partner Tony Dominguez. A large part of Ashby’s formative years were spent with Saphir, Sons and Company, in the London Fruit Exchange, Spitalfields.

He also held various other positions at Ken Perretts, Walpole Fruit Packers, Geest Tropical and AFI.

“I have immensely enjoyed my working life with a number of well known produce companies,” said Ashby this week. “I was lucky enough to have learnt my trade from characters such as Vic Hackett and Fred Wallis, and to have been deployed in the famous, or infamous, Programmed Supplies Dept (PSD), was that an early version of category management?

“This was a time when produce sales within the supermarket industry were less than the wholesale markets, and was dominated by colourful buyers such as Sid Stevens at Tesco, Laurie Abbott (Safeway), Bill Blackburn (M&S), and Robin Whitbread (Sainsbury’s) and a relative multitude of supermarkets including Galbraith, Gateway, Hillards, International Stores, Keymarkets, Mac-Fisheries, Templetons and Wallis stores.”

The final few years of his career have been equally rewarding. “The last 10 years has been a wonderful time to be involved in the soft-fruit business and we developed into a very successful Spanish business,” Ashby said.

The Alconeras business, together with Driscolls and KG, was merged to form Berry Gardens in February this year. “The transition has now been successfully completed and the future for the new company is both exciting and assured,” said Ashby. “It is therefore sad to be leaving the business after a relatively short period of time, but I will take with me great memories of a most enjoyable and rewarding career in the fresh produce business, many friendships and a knowledge that the transformed business will develop into Europe’s finest.”