The gentle touch

From production and supply to trading, marketing, wholesale and retail - across the length of the entire food chain - women are making their mark on the fresh produce industry.

But why then are they an unusual sight in the fresh produce corporate swirl? And what will it take to see more female faces at the top levels of the business?

“It is a heady, intensive seven-day week, with daily supermarket deliveries, which is often difficult for women with family commitments,” says Kathryn Gray, who heads up Asda supplier International Produce Limited (IPL). “A lot of women in fresh produce are getting on with doing a good job and do not want to be singled out as being different from their male colleagues. I have a lot of respect for women who work in the industry.”

There are 12 senior managers at IPL, five of whom are female. “We always joke that women will outnumber the men on the senior management team one day,” says Gray. “This is an unusually balanced team, not because I seek out women - I only ever want the best possible person for the job.”

The fresh produce business is like any other in terms of its gender ratio, she adds, and as such should not be singled out for criticism. “Most businesses are run by men,” she says. “But there are a lot of women in fresh produce.”

Gray has worked in the fresh produce industry for 23 years. She completed a graduate training scheme with distribution company Christian Salvesen, where she became involved in the vegetable processing side of the business. After completing an MBA, she joined Monaghan Mushrooms, where she stayed for nine years, before moving to Geest. She has now led IPL for three years.

“Most people fall into fresh produce, but once they are in it, they love it, and that is the case with me,” says Gray. “It has a good combination between immediate action and strong long-term planning - a good balance.

“I have loved everything I have done and I am looking forward to more. I am privileged that I am in a job that I love.”

An increasing number of younger women are getting their teeth into the fresh produce sector, says Lianne Jones, European field manager at the Chilean Fresh Fruit Association (CFFA), and this will continue to grow in line with the changing shape of the business. “The needs of the industry are changing,” she says. “It used to be a trading culture, but with the rise of the retailers and increased importance of the category manager, more doors have been opened up to women.

“The roles are both round and diverse. The number of skills required by the industry have increased, and as a result those who want to enter need to be multi-faceted and versatile.

“But it also comes down to the type of person you are. You have to have a thick skin because it is a fast-moving industry, and there is a lot of pressure. People work incredible hours in this industry, with a lot of early mornings and a lot of hard graft.”

Jones entered the fresh produce industry when she completed a Management Development Services (MDS) training programme, which included a placement with JP Fruit as a marketing executive, a stint as an operations supervisor at Greens of Soham, where she had to supervise a team of men grading potatoes and daffodils, a post as a junior buyer at Del Monte-owned Fisher Foods and a period at Lingarden. She stayed on at the Lingarden Asda account, where she helped to grow one or two flower lines into a £21 million business.

Her latest role at CFFA, which she took in August 2006, has seen her getting to grips with another side of the business. “I have been able to expand my knowledge of the industry in my new role, and this has been one of the highlights for me: understanding how the different markets operate, how EU legislation comes into play and how to implement a range of different marketing campaigns to suit different countries and retailers,” she says.

The fresh produce business has changed a lot in the last few years, according to Victoria Gipps at fresh produce recruitment company Grade One, and she welcomes the sea-change in women coming into the sector. “When I first came into fresh produce recruitment in 1994, I was really genuinely shocked by how sexist it was,” she says. “It was a man’s world and they just got on with it. But if a strong female came into play they really stood out.”

Grade One recruits for the supply side of the fresh produce industry, including growers, packers, importers and traders, as well as for commercial roles, from entry level to £80,000-plus salaries. Around 90 per cent of the graduates placed by Grade One last year were women, with roles that ranged from commercial positions to quality control and the technical side of the business.

The priority is to get the best person for the job, says Gipps. “Women tend to have better judgement and more perception, in many cases, and they are often the better chameleon. But you have to get the chemistry right between the client and the candidate,” she adds.

The candidates on the Grade One system are 60:40 male to female and Gipps is satisfied there is a fairly even gender mix. “I have a reasonably strong view of flying the flag for women, but I will always pick the best candidate for the job,” she insists.

Women should not be differentiated from men, insists Jones, who believes the industry needs people qualified for the job, regardless of their gender. “This is not an industry that discriminates against women,” she says. “If women want to work in fresh produce, there is nothing in their way.”

Golda Ezuz, head of the citrus division at Israeli exporting giant Agrexco and former FPC Personality of the Year, says she has never been treated differently as a woman in the trade. She started her fresh produce career “by chance”, when she started working for the Citrus Marketing Board of Israel (CMBI) more than 35 years ago. “When I first came to the UK as part of the CMBI team, in 1989, I was a bit nervous, since it felt like I was maybe the only woman in the industry, and I definitely set a precedent,” says Ezuz. “I was accepted immediately by the sector and given a fair chance.”

But women do stand out in the senior tiers of the fresh produce industry, according to Andrea Caldecourt at the Flowers & Plants Association (F&PA), and this can be used to their advantage. “I take it as a good thing because you are more likely to be noticed,” she says. “I feel at home in this industry and I look forward to the challenges - I’m always looking at the next project, opportunity or trend.”

The industry is not without its challenges for all involved. Fresh produce is a 24-hour business, involving long hours and travel, but there has to be some recognition that there is a life at home, according to Gipps, and this would allow more women to reach the top levels of the industry. “The ongoing theme is the hours and travel,” she says. “You’re fine as a young, fit and single person but, eventually, there will be issues with how many hours you can spend away from home.”

But some sectors of the industry are more notorious than others. The wholesale trade, with its unconventional working hours and old-school banter, is perhaps one of the most difficult areas for women to penetrate, but this is not to say that women have not had made their mark on that area within the trade.

Jan Lloyd, chief executive of the Covent Garden Market Authority, is just one of the female decision-makers in the wholesale sector. “I am very insensitive to the fact that I’m a woman in the business,” she says. “We are just people doing our job.”

Lloyd moved into fresh produce when she became chief executive in November 2005. “The decision to move to New Covent Garden market was to do with securing the future of the market - I wanted a change management role,” she says.

But Lloyd had some reservations about her move to Nine Elms. “I had to ask myself if there really was a role for wholesale markets and how difficult it would be to deliver change. And I knew I would have to deal with 250 tenants who are businessmen in their own right, not employees, and I had never done that before.”

Now 18 months on, Lloyd is starting to see results. “We have cleared a path for the future redevelopment of the market after so many years of inaction and uncertainty,” she says. “I want people to understand the contribution the wholesale markets make to the food industry and we are trying to wake people up to the fact that we are a route to a market that would otherwise be difficult to access. We are trying to raise awareness.”

But while keeping a traditional market atmosphere is important, says Lloyd, some of the age-old attitudes could be detrimental to business.

Caldecourt agrees that the response women get in market environments is not conducive to good working relationships. “You still get whistled at, which seems a strange way to communicate with somebody,” she adds.

“The traders do not wrap things up for you, everyone knows that,” says Lloyd. “Most of them are from a similar background, and they operate in a bit of a closed society in their own time zone.

“But the atmosphere does have an impact when women come to the market to buy, which is more common in the flower market. The rough and ready, salt of the earth attitude is all well and good, but not if it puts off punters.”

Lloyd says a change of attitude could benefit the market. “You just have to chip away at it and encourage people to take note. Appealing to people’s pockets will make them sit up and listen,” she says.

Production is another area considered as a traditionally male-dominated sector but, according to the 2005 Lantra Business Survey, the gender breakdown for production horticulture, including the fresh produce sector, shows a fairly even split between males and females, with women making up 46.1 per cent of the industry.

Figures for the number of proprietors, on the other hand, show that men far outnumber women, with a 72.5 per cent weighting.

Jo Hilditch, a Herefordshire-based grower and chairman of two growers’ associations - for blackcurrants and chickens - as well as chair of the Blackcurrant Foundation, says her male counterparts in the production sector have come to treat her as an equal.

Her family has been involved in farming for many years. “My grandfather used to sell nearly everything he produced in the local shops and markets, and there is some wonderful old literature of his marketing his fresh fruit and vegetables, as well as eggs, jam and meats, which he laboriously copied by hand to take around the shops,” she says.

Things are very different now, of course, and Hilditch knows how to play the commercial game. “One of the major attractions of the fresh produce market is that it is largely unsubsidised and therefore operates properly in a market economy,” she says.

“The only challenge that faces women in any part of our farming industry is a degree of male chauvinism,” says Hilditch. “There are very few industries that are so male dominated, and this can cause some consternation amongst some of the more old-fashioned types.

“However, in my case, once farmers knew I was here to stay I gained some respect,” she adds.

The fresh flower business has fared better when it comes to the number of women at the top of the tree. A total of 72 per cent of proprietors in the floristryindustry in 2005 were female, according to Lantra, and up-to-date figures from the F&PA suggest this has not changed. Of the membership contacts for the F&PA, 74 per cent of the floristry tutor contacts are female, as are 66 per cent of the independentflorist retail contacts, and 30 per cent of contacts in other sectors, including wholesalers, importers, growers, and multiple retailers.“This does not always mean that the person in charge of the entire company is female, although in many instances this is the case, but it does say that they are senior enough to be our main point of contact,” Caldecourt adds.

So what does the future hold for women in the fresh produce sector? There should be as many women in the industry as want to work in it, says Caldecourt. “The industry as a whole has a recruitment problem so I think encouragement should be aimed at both genders - I do not believe in quotas or tokenism,” she says.

“People do not know a lot about the opportunities that are available in the fresh produce sector. They do not know how the industry operates - all the points in the distribution chain, import and export - and they need more information,” she adds.

Drawing attention to females in the business is always encouraging, says Lloyd, and it can only benefit the industry. “The issues we face in fresh produce are no different from other industries, but you can learn from them and see how they have been addressed,” she adds.

“Women can get on in any industry if they want to,” adds Hilditch. “I rather disapprove of the blatant sexism that tries to specifically encourage women to enter fields in which they would not necessarily be comfortable.

“But fresh produce is an interesting industry with plenty of opportunities for marketing and negotiating skills amongst the very exciting prospect of actually providing food to a nation of hungry - and fussy - eaters.”

LANTRA - WOMEN AND WORK

Funding is now available to train female managers of the future, Lantra Sector Skills Council tells FPJ, as part of a project that aims to address the gender imbalance in the production horticulture industry.

Some 600 women will benefit from training to help develop leadership, management and specialist skills as part of the Women and Work project, which aims to help women progress within the production and horticulture industry.

The initiative, which is managed by Lantra for the environmental and land-based sector, is targeted at those who wish to move forward in an occupation where it is widely recognised that few females have highly skilled or managerial jobs. The aim is, ultimately, to improve the gender balance in the sector.

Lantra provides up to £1,000 worth of funding and support, which is matched with £250 from the employer. This also provides support from a personal skills coach, who will give one-to-one support to the employee. It will also help by mentoring the employer to underpin the knowledge gained during the training programme and to ensure that it is aligned to their business needs.

The project offers female employees a competency-based skills assessment, which identifies skills shortages and links these to appropriate training.

Training programmes focus on leadership, management and supervisory skills as well as technical, specialist and professional skills.

This new project follows the success of the Lantra Women in Rural Isolation project in Somerset, which enabled 220 women in the region to benefit from a wide range of short courses. Twelve of the women who participated in the Somerset project have now trained to become instructors.

Malcolm Florey, Women in Rural Isolation project co-ordinator, says: “For those who participated in more than 450 training days in Somerset, we have seen the development of a wide range of business and personal skills. Their employers have enjoyed improved business performance and a number of long-term benefits. The national Women and Work project is set to emulate this.”

To be eligible for funding, women should be self-employed or employed in a full-time or part-time position. This initiative is in response to recommendations by the Women and Work Commission’s report Shaping a Fairer Future, and receives government funding, matched by employer contributions. To get involved, or for more information, contact Lyndsay Bird on 01837 659234 or 07867 908167 or email Lyndsay.bird@lantra.co.uk or visit www.lantra.co.uk

A CHANCE TO IMPROVE THE BALANCE

More than 100 female employees have claimed subsidised training as part of drive to boost the number of women in the food and drink manufacturing industry, according to Paula Widdowson at sector skills council Improve, and a further 400 must be filled by September.

The organisation, which received funds from the Treasury, is subsidising 90 per cent of the costs for women to complete an introductory certificate from the Chartered Management Institute.

The food and drink sector makes up the largest manufacturing industry in the UK and, according to Improve figures, at least 118,000 people will need to be recruited into the industry, and some 38,000 of these will be managers and supervisors. “Women make up just 23 per cent of managers in the food and drink sector, so they’re hugely under-represented,” says Widdowson. “I’d urge any interested parties to get in touch as soon as possible, as places are allocated on a first-come-first-served basis. By next spring we hope to have helped 500 people complete the management certificate, which will go some way to boosting the number of female managers in the sector.”

The funding available for women to complete the course is positive discrimination for women, says Widdowson, and is one of the ways that Improve is trying to address the imbalance of men and women in the food and drink manufacturing industry.

“Improve has undertaken a massive research project into women in the food and drink manufacturing industry, and what we found is that if you work in food and drink manufacturing, you will most likely be a white male, aged about 40, with a permanent contract,” she adds.

The subsidy means that for an employer contribution of £50 per employee, each person will receive £500 worth of training.

“The course is ideal for women with no previous management experience, who will gain the skills and knowledge needed to take on more senior positions, helping to further their career development,” Widdowdon says. “However, it can also be beneficial for women already in management roles, who will also learn new techniques that they can apply to their day-to-day jobs.”

For more information call Improve on 0845 644 0448.