Early days in Ashby (leicestershire) - Part 3

Intially I had worked for United Biscuits down in their Osterley factory - just off the A4 - and I had lived in Acton. When I had been offered the UB job, following an interview up in Ashby, nothing was said about me working in London so it was a bit of a shock to receive a letter telling me of the change of plan. I enjoyed my time in London and there was always plenty that needed to be done.

I was never really clear why, after 3 months, I was moved (back) up to the Ashby site. If anything the department there was rather overstaffed even before I started work there so when I arrived in January 1977 there wasn’t much for me to do. Most, if not all, of the more interesting work was hijacked by the senior staff and as the “new boy” I either had nothing whatsoever to do and was literally sitting around all day feeling bored and demotivated or, if I was really unlucky, I was sent off on fairly pointless missions to Grimsby or Fakenham for several days at a time so I could feel bored, lonely and demotivated over there instead! I spent many nights at the Humber Royal or at the Grimsby Crest hotels and many days at the Grimsby factory for no tangible benefit to either me or to my employer.
Eventually I started working with Doctor Terry Sharp. He was OK as a line manager and I rather suspect that he shared my reservations about the department.  Most of the time he and I seemed to be working on “Lewis Wheat” products. I think the idea was to make instant wheat rather like instant rice by soaking the wheat grains in salt water, then cracking the grains open by passing them between rotating steel rollers before drying them prior to adding flavours.  I thought we made some quite good products but as far as I can remember none made it to large scale production.

During my time there we took on even more staff – including the former Nottingham University graduate Ruth Henry (was Ruth Biggin) - but without there being any increase in the total amount of work that needed doing. Even with hindsight the unrestrained "empire building" that went on was bizarre. I do think that the people that ran the graduate trainee scheme didn't co-ordinate well with the people who were supposed to supervise the graduates on a day-to-day basis. .

Early days in Ashby (Leicestershire) - Part 2

I had made a number of assumptions about my new job at United Biscuits that proved to be incorrect. The combined effect of all of these was to make my time there both unhappy and professionally unproductive. Well, I say assumptions, perhaps more correctly I should say that I had expected what was told to me both at and after my interview would bear at least some resemblance to what really happened!

I had expected that the job – Product Development Technologist – would make use of the knowledge and skills I had acquired during my three year degree course at Nottingham University. It is fair to say that it didn’t. The creative side of the work was done by the departmental chef (Bill Tidman), and the scientific and technical aspects of manufacturing the tiny percentage of products that made it through the product development cycle from initial concept to product launch was almost always done by factory staff based at the relevant United Biscuits’ sites.

Convenience Foods, where I was based, was the smallest of the three product development groups and was very much the poor relation in terms of the number and range of products being worked on. When I arrived the focus of the section was almost entirely on “KP Ooodles” which was a Japanese idea with a pilot plant initially in Carlisle and then in Grimsby. It was never a particularly high quality product and since the only place it was being manufactured was 3 hours away from the base of staff tasked with over-seeing its manufacture it was rather a poisoned chalice that people were happy to unload onto me.

Eventually there was some diversification into instant wheat – a good idea that never seemed to take off – and also into pouch packed meals. These meals, initially produced under the name of Howards Haute Cuisine, had a manufacturing base in Fakenham (Norfolk). Again this was a lengthy journey from Leicestershire and it should have clear to the bosses that having a research base in the middle of the country responsible for products only manufactured on the east coast wasn’t a great idea!

As a scientific aside - the under processing of the pouch packs was potentially quite a serious issue public health issue and even with hindsight I don't understand why the quickest and easiest solution wasn't adopted.