Brian Astridge: supporting food innovation

Brian Astridge discusses the variety of positions he has held throughout his career in food technology and explains what his current role as Operations Manager at The FOODBOWL involves.

Follow-up activities

View The FOODBOWL story and read the article Facilitating food innovation in New Zealand. List all the areas of expertise you consider a food company may need to help them succeed in developing new product ideas and exporting to overseas markets. Discuss how Brian’s various career experiences may have prepared him for his current position at The FOODBOWL.

Transcript

Brian Astridge I did a Bachelor of Technology majoring in food, and then my first roles were in industries such as the ham and bacon and smallgoods industry and the petfood industry and the fruit juice concentrate industry. And then I moved into more an auditing quality control role, which gave me exposure to all aspects of the food and beverage industry, so over 2 years, I saw pretty much every sort of food and beverage process you could think of.

And then I got into something a bit different. I got into trade negotiations with Foreign Affairs and Trade in the Agriculture Ministry, so that saw me travel to over 40 countries round the world, including Saudi Arabia, Iran, Russia, North Africa. So that was a real exciting role, but I decided that I wanted a role which enabled me to stay in New Zealand, so that was one of the reasons why I came to this role here.

I’m responsible for the operations team and all the functions under that team, which includes food safety – it includes compliance, it includes the process design and process engineering functions and it includes the engineering functions such as the site and utilities maintenance, which also covers things like health and safety.

I actually came here to solve some problems on a secondment, but then I really liked the idea of getting back into operations after 8 years out of the food industry. There were some new challenges, and there was a real people management aspect to the role, which really inspired me.

Acknowledgements Brian Astridge, The FOODBOWL

Chris Cullen, Culley’s Just the Job, Dave Mason Productions. www.careers.govt.nzresources/tools-and-activities/just-the-job New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade

Photo of salamis and smallgoods, copyrighted property of Racorn Photo of dry petfood, copyrighted property of Yuri Minaev Photo of dog eating, copyrighted property of Pictrough Photo of Medina, Saudi Arabia, copyrighted property of Aidar Ayazbayev Photo of Moscow Kremlin, Russia, copyrighted property of Iakov Filimonov Photo of Marakesh Markets, Morocco, copyrighted property of dbajurin All photos licensed through 123RF Limited and are being used with permission under licence. These photos may not be copied or downloaded without permission from 123RF Limited.