Likening himself to Puss In Boots, David Shepherd is no stranger to trusting the road and seeing where fate takes him.
After travelling around Australia, the US and Africa for two years and deciding he didn’t want to take on his family’s arable-turned-transport business, Shepherd had to choose a career. Not having applied for a university place in the usual way, Shepherd returned to the UK to face the clearing system, a little bemused. “I looked in The Independent clearing pages, which are of course in alphabetical order,” he explains. “I got to accounting and thought that was far too boring, then saw agriculture. I rang up Harper Adams and 10 days later I was starting my course.”
It’s this laid back, yet measured attitude - possibly brought on by the knowledge and security of a farming background - that has made Shepherd one of the fresh produce movers and shakers of the current generation. He puts his mind to a challenge and he gets it done. And his latest mission is Fresh Inspirations, a new initiative set to inspire, empower and connect the next generation of fresh produce leaders. Shepherd is one of the 15 mentors set to guide the next generation and will be conducting one-on-one sessions with aspiring young people throughout all walks of the fresh produce business at the first Fresh Inspirations conference in Huntingdon on 26 January.
Shepherd appreciates he managed to make his decisions quite easily, at a time when getting into university and paving your way in any industry was relatively straightforward. “University is a different institution now,” he says. “It is a lot harder to get a place and you need a hell of a lot more experience and commitment to the subject. It’s an awful situation the students are in today - putting so much effort and money into their degree when there isn’t necessarily a job waiting for them at the end of it. It takes a certain level of maturity to be a student now, which I certainly didn’t have. Today, university is part of a business plan. You have to make sure you get a return on your investment.”
Although Shepherd might not have had a business plan, he soon caught the fresh produce bug and made things happen for himself. His next career decision came quite quickly after dropping himself into Harper Adams - then and now, one of the most respected rural university colleges. He had to arrange a sandwich year placement and this time there was no handy list to guide him. Fortunately, his girlfriend at the time had to complete a year of industry experience before starting her degree due to her lack of rural background, or being a bit more of a “townie” as he affectionately puts it.
She had been taken under the wing of John Shropshire (also a Fresh Inspirations mentor) at the company now known as G’s Fresh, and she suggested he gave the company a call.
“The seeds were planted at G’s, but I didn’t realise how much I really wanted to be part of the fresh produce industry until I worked as a buyer at Sainsbury’s,” he says. “It was a work hard, play hard mentality at G’s and I made friends with people like Derek Wilkinson and Colin Wilkinson, who have been instrumental in my career and in my personal life. But it was at Sainsbury’s where the fresh produce industry really got under my skin.
“It’s such a fast paced, exciting place to be at that level, with such a huge variety of work and experiences. It is a testament to Sainsbury’s that so many of its ex-employees are still in the supply side of the business. Sainsbury’s brings out your personal strengths to fit those into the organisation and point you in the right direction.”
And in the right direction he had headed. Having completed his higher national diploma at Harper Adams, Shepherd completed a conversion course and MSc in business studies at the Royal Agricultural College at Cirencester and got waylaid working off his student debts on a tractor on an arable farm. It was then, after a bit of a wake-up call talking to from the farmer’s wife, he packed up his knapsack and went to London to find his fortune, or more aptly, his fate. While sleeping on Harper Adams’ friends floors and sofas in the late 1990s, Shepherd landed the Sainsbury’s job.
“I just happened to send my CV in and all of a sudden I was being interviewed among tens of thousands for just one of 20 jobs,” he explained. “I didn’t even know what role they were interviewing me for; I had to go through psych tests, an interview and then - with the help of a swift gin at lunchtime - I had to deliver a presentation.”
Shepherd got the job, starting as a buyer for cooking sauces and quickly propelling to salads, prepared and organics, after being fast tracked through the system. He spent five years there until he was headhunted by Evesham Vale Growers (EVG), and recruited as the company’s commercial director in 2002.
“I had dealt with EVG at Sainsbury’s, and when the approach was made initially I said no, but after the third attempt I was ready to move on and get back into the excitement of the supply base,” Shepherd explains. “My role at Sainsbury’s had moved on at that point and although I enjoyed it I was longing for the hustle and bustle of the supply base and the fire fighting that goes with that.”
At 40, he seems a little young to be a mentor, I suggest. I sound like I’m trying to flatter and quickly try to think of something to say to counteract. But before I have a chance, he responds with a probably only part true, self-deprecating comment: “It’s a lot about being in the right place at the right time. I have been very lucky.” And that’s why Shepherd’s involved. Like most of the opportunities that have come his way through his career, he’s had the foresight to identify them and acted, but he sees the injustice of the job market and the attitude of the fresh produce industry in general towards young blood that exists now.
For too long, companies and government institutions have relied on the knowledge-rich, time-poor generation, which will inevitably retire very soon and leave a gap if their expertise and knowledge are not passed on. As Shepherd says of his new mentor role, “university can’t prepare newcomers in a practical way. We have to help young people find our industry and nurture them so they stay here.”-
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