PROFILE: Ready Meals Buyer For Pukka Grub...
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With
the launch of a new ready meals products onto the shelves of J Sainsbury
coming in at £20,000 a piece, being a ready meals buyer is a job
full of risks. Inundated with calls
with bright ideas from people who have served up a tasty dish at
dinner parties and want to take it commercial, Mike Simpson-Jones
assesses his strike rate at getting the products right for the customer
as 'fairly good. But it takes a lot to get to get to a launch of
a new meal, from the initial analysis, to the development, and through
to the pricing and publicity angles. This is the man behind the
job. BACKGROUNDNAME:
Mike Simpson-Jones COMPANY:
J Sainsbury TITLE:
Buyer (senior buyer within ready meals) DATE
OF BIRTH: 08/12/71 EDUCATION:
Christ's Hospital, Sussex, followed by Westminster University, where
he emerged with a BSc Hons in Manufacturing and Business Studies.
Also has an NCIPS awarded by the Chartered Institute of Purchase
& Supply. FAMILY:
Engaged currently in the countdown to marriage. HOBBIES:
Watching and playing football and rugby, tempered by an enthusiasm
for cooking and food and wine. This takes him travelling around
the country to dig into bits of local history, and then sample the
local fare and produce in the pubs and restaurants which comes back
to food again. CAREER TO DATE PRESENT JOB AND RESPONSIBILITIES: Buyer. Mike is a senior buyer within the Chilled Prepared Meals team. His responsibilities include sales growth; profit growth; strategy; managing strategy; and the whole P&L of the area. He works very closely with the quality technical teams, development team and the supply chain. It is a real team effort,he says.
CAREER
IN FOOD INDUSTRY: He has worked his way up from the bottom in supermarkets,
starting with holiday jobs when he was 16. This path to a senior
ready meals buyer included cleaning jobs in the supermarket his
mother worked in during school holidays, where he worked his way
up to be a part time supervisor. After
university he went to Safeway as a graduate trainee, but a year
down the line they parted company, and he moved to Marks & Spencer
as a buying assistant. That put him for three years in ready meals
and one and a half years in produce. After
that Marks & Spencer started going through a bit of a tough
time, and he moved to J Sainsbury as a buyer. After six months in
produce he started to work his way up
to his present position of buying in the ready meals. CAREER
IN J SAINSBURY: Started 1 November 1999 so has chalked up nearly
four years. HOW HAVE YOU GOT WHERE YOU ARE TODAY?: Listening to others,Mike says. That's not just within business, but the views of customers. You meet people at a party, you listen to what they have to say, and why they think that way. Then
I think you have always got to be straight forward with people,
and honest. And a final ingredient is having a gamble always willing
to take a chance. THE
INDUSTRY
HOW DO YOU SEE THE STATE OF THE READY MEALS SECTOR AT THE MOMENT?: Highly competitive. It is a big growth area and everyone is entering into the market. Three years ago it was Tesco, J Sainsbury and Marks & Spencer. Now Safeway is dedicating a lot of square-footage to ready meals, as well as Asda and the Co-op. Somerfield has started a development programme. The
big three still sit at the top of the premier league, with Tesco
being the biggest, followed by M&S, and Sainsbury just behind.
But although M&S has been traditionally associated with the
ready meals as part of their grocery offering, Mike says there has
been no growth in the number of products they offer, as they do
not want to give the ready meals the space in their stores. With
J Sainsbury estimating ready meals as a £1.4 billion industry,
Mike says that the sector has grown in leaps and bounds. WHAT
ARE THE CHALLENGES FOR THE FUTURE OF OWN LABLE AND BRANDED READY
MEALS?: Mike sees the challenge in own label is to continue pushing
the boundaries back in terms of quality, because the perception
is that the customers is that it is a lower quality than a restaurant
experience. Take
our Indian range,he says, we have a team of top Indian chefs and
chefs from the big hotel groups like the Taj Group - and the meal
is as authentic and of as high a quality as a restaurant. He
sees the challenge for branded ready meals is that they are competing
with the own label products, which dominate the market. To be able
to work as a branded meal they have to show a big difference. WHAT
DO YOU LOOK FOR IN A READY MEAL BEFORE ADDING IT TO THE LISTING?:
The basic principles are: 1.
High
quality (meat percentage, ingredients, etc) 2.
Value
to my customer 3.
Where
should the retail price be? 4.
Deliver
for me in terms of my margins. I
will be looking for something that is different and is taking the
category that little bit further. Sometimes it may be a good PR
story about it. I will be looking at what it is going to deliver
from my own perspective. WHAT
WOULD YOU ADVISE A NEW MANUFACTURER TO DO WHO WANTS TOGET A LISTING
FOR THEIR PRODUCT AT SAINSBURY'S: I get seven or eight phone calls
a week from people who have created a recipe for a dinner party
and think it is so good that they want me to take it on,he laughs. If
you are a manufacturer thinking of getting into Own Label, your
offering will have to be something better than what's out there
at the moment. You will have to think: quality; think price; nd
think innovation; because there are some big £60 million factories
out there with all the big kitchens, and all the big production
lines. For
branded products, it is a question of knowing about the brand. The
manufacturer needs to know about the brand inside out. A
brand had got to know everything about what their brand is and about
their customer, and not only understand who the average customer
is but what their brand is going to mean to them.
WHAT
MANAGEMENT STYLE DO YOU PRACTICE?: Firm, fair, but fun are the key
words in Mike's management style. He
sees himself as fair, and does not like the practice of bullying
people, whether suppliers or colleagues. He sees listening to people
as very important, but does not shy away some straight talking when
necessary. But
with that you have got to have some element of injecting some fun. This
last element is import to get the creative juices going on creating
new dishes, that means researching, developing, leading and co-ordinating
a large number of people and resources. WHAT
DO YOU SEE YOURSELF DOING IN 10 YEARS TIME?: If I am still in ready
meals I would be a bit gutted,he laughs, while he ponders his future. He
thinks in terms of being someone who can help the supplier base,
and use his knowledge to help producers in their relationship with
the retailer. Failing
that, I would have a pub with a nice restaurant!
Interviewed
by William Loram |
