Catherine Crompton Email & Phone Number

Harrogate, Gb

York, England, United Kingdom

Responsible for introducing and covering all technical aspects from artwork approval to obtaining SALSA accreditation across 3 sites including monitoring external co-manufacturers/copackers. Categories include pet food, meats (Steaks, burgers, sausages), peanut butter, chocolate, snacks, dried meals, ice cream sitting within frozen, chilled and ambient sections.

York, England, United Kingdom

To develop a range of different food products from frozen to ambient.

United Kingdom

To advise on all technical aspects of pet food manufacture.

United Kingdom

To create a range of unusual frozen desserts from scratch.

Harrogate, England, United Kingdom

The company changed direction during this time from delivering free food parcels to providing 2 community groceries and 2 pay what you feel cafes in Harrogate & Knaresborough. This involved many changes including an increased demand for food, higher quality checks on the intercepted food (ambient, chilled & frozen), many policies and procedures to be written, training requirements, increased demand for volunteers and an implementation of an organised warehouse with no money provided for fixtures and fittings. I feel that this was the biggest challenge of my career to provide this service to the CIC with no budget. Nicknamed "chat a lot" during this work, I gained a reputation as someone who could meet the growing demands of this CIC, from food and toiletries to fixtures and fittings and cleaning products. My team of volunteers were amazing and kept me going through many challenges. All were trained in food safety and food handling, all have a great understanding of what a functioning warehouse should look like, even though most had not worked within the food industry before. Those that had worked in the food industry previously were fantastic at providing support to either help liaise with donators/food industry/retailers or ensure that short shelf life food was rotated especially as out of date food was often donated from other local charities. We provided luxury items to other organisations for their volunteers and in exchange they provided their excess donations. A true community working together. The warehouse is now a fully functioning store of intercepted food waste and donations with thousands of SKU's all date checked. A full ordering and stock system has been implemented to help the communication and ordering between the warehouse and the groceries. The groceries and cafes were provided with full technical support and a better understanding of allergens, food labelling requirements and food safety.Most importantly we had fun!

Harrogate, England, United Kingdom

Working as an unpaid director whilst still working as a community volunteer intercepting food waste and providing much needed support to those in our community. The company was about to move in a different direction later in the year, so investigation into new premises, building up of stock with ample shelf life whilst still providing free food parcels to those in need.

Harrogate, England, United Kingdom

Engaging with previous employers, other food manufacturers, supermarkets, Fareshare and the general public to intercept food waste and short shelf life products to provide over 16,000 free emergency food parcels for vulnerable adults and children within Harrogate, Knaresborough and Ripon area.Communicating and steering local donations through weekly emails, social media and news media.Administrating and coordinating over 150 volunteers to collect donations and deliver parcels within the community.Implemented and coordinated an emergency support network within the local community including coordinating leaflet drops in the Harrogate area, all from emails, mobile phones and social media before the first lock down.Supporting mental health and wellbeing of both Resurrected Bites customers and local Shielders.

York, United Kingdom

Working within a small technical team, this position involved every job role found within a technical department. The company expanded from a turnover of several million to approaching 30 million within 2 years. This involved rapid expansion, continual changes and the ability to continuously adapt and move forward with daily issues resolved constantly.The role also involved product development with new launches, short deadlines for both own brand and retailer own brands. As part of this function, there were many challenges of removing allergens to become an allergen free site, rationalisation of ingredients and products, process improvements, yield improvements and change of suppliers without affecting taste or quality. Constant changes to specifications and artwork was a daily occurrence to ensure that existing packaging was used up but was compliant with the product.

Wetherby

Working within the NPD team, devising new savoury products including development, process trials and shelf life monitoring.In addition, provided support to the technical team, creating new technical databases for monitoring product quality including full nutritional analysis and shelf life testing.Specification controller, entering new and reviewing old specifications for majority of the retailers.

Fox'S Biscuits, Batley, Kirkham, Uttoxeter

Working within the cost out team across all 3 manufacturing sites to improve the taste and quality of all existing products, whilst identifying possible savings by recipe reformulation. This often included ingredient rationalisation, removal or reduction although some projects were related to process improvements. Liaised with all departments including product and process development, technical, procurement, marketing, and manufacturing to ensure that communication and co-ordination of each project was carried out to ensure that the project was driven forward efficiently to maximise potential savings.Devised an alternative informal sensory analysis with either a triangle test or hedonic and diagnostic questions, ensuring that all products were kept at a premium by using voluntary panels and recording all findings. All data was subjected to statistical analysis to ensure that all recipe decisions were based on accurate significant differences with a clear understanding of how recipes could be improved. Depending upon the consumer group identified, a particular target group could also be used to evaluate new products to market from age groups of 9 to 99!.

Wakefield And Bradford

Re-viewing and re-writing HACCP and allergen documentation for all manufacturing lines over 2 factories. Working with supply chain, within the technical team, to bring all documentation up to date with customer requirements and BRC policies within the bakery industry.

Created 2 ranges of savoury stock products for the retail market including designing the process, commissioning the equipment and producing launch stocks under tight deadlinesDeveloped, investigated and consumer researched a savoury stock powder capable of being compressed, including process design and product trials.Worked on a range of recipes for home baking kits for major retailers.

United Kingdom

took time out to have kids - no more!!

• Liaised with processing equipment suppliers of different food technologies in Western Europe and Denmark, performing trials to achieve new products to be transferred to production.• Conducted experiments on new fish based products and advised on the design of a production line in a Scandinavian factory.• Introduced and controlled up to 50 new products per week into UK production confirming all flavours complied with good manufacturing practices, Health & Safety, legislation and ensuring all ingredients could be sourced without supply issues.• Managed processing in the UK and Norway working as a member of the supply chain industrialisation team based out of Switzerland and conferring with Swiss colleagues regularly on new technology and techniques.• Transferred products from newly acquired businesses onto existing processing equipment, using internal ingredients without loss to quality or production lead time.

• Sourced and negotiated ingredient and flavour suppliers to improve and maintain quality on existing products whilst reducing overheads.• Managed multiple projects with respect to new product and process development, including consumer research with launches in Eastern and Western Europe, Africa and Asia. • Established effective integration and communication of new business acquisitions to encompass additive legislations and strategic business objectives were met.• Co-ordinated cross-functional teams, to ensure product compliance and project objectives were met, whilst developing and implementing flavours into production for products to be launched worldwide.

This was a joint venture between the Leeds University Department of Food Science and the New Zealand Crop and Food Research based in Christchurch. Half of the research was carried out in New Zealand and the project was linked to the University of Otago, Dunedin.The research was aimed at finding lipoxygenase activity in new zealand endemic plants and a publication was written.Allen, Lancaster & Robinson (1999): Lipoxygenase activity in seeds from New Zealand native plants.

Phd And Bsc, Food Science

Produced 2 publications: Wedzicha & Allen (1994) Kinetic effect of sulphite ions on ester hydrolysis. Allen & Gramshaw (1996).

Education record

Activities and Societies: Head Girl