Three up-and-coming industry talents were given time in the spotlight at the British Pig & Poultry Fair
Will Lea grew up on his family’s arable farm in Shropshire, but while he might not have been pulling the strings to start with, he admits that “as a toddler I was already, in my mind, farm manager”.
Lea, who now works as compliance manager at Country Fresh Pullets, recalls how the farm moved into free-range egg production in 1998 at a time when that was still a niche area of the market, and hasn’t looked back.
Even as a student at Harper Adams University, Lea wasn’t convinced poultry was the career for him – “it wasn’t talked about because it wasn’t sexy,” he concedes – but it was on a placement with Sun Valley, now Avara Foods, that inspired him that this was his true path. “At Avara I could see the whole supply chain, and everything we were doing back on the home farm now made sense,” he recalls. “Supply, demand and consumer trends were key messages.”
After graduation Lea took a job as production manager at Country Fresh Pullets in 2017. He is now actively involved in industry affairs, working with multiple Defra working groups and acting as an NFU national and regional board member, BFREPA director and BEIC vice chairman. He also participated in the 2019 cohort of the NFU’s PIP programme.
“My main aim is to be involved in as many things as I can to ensure a prosperous future for all in the industry,” he says. “We need to work together to achieve this. We all also need to encourage the next gen and new entrants into the industry to secure our future.”
Trading places
Harper Adams agribusiness graduate David Andrew isn’t from a farming background, but his fascination for trading and economics brought him into the sector.
His studies included a placement at Frontier Agriculture, where he learnt about trading, contracts and grain movements, as well as meeting farmers and seeing production first hand. Frontier offered him a place as a trainee grain trader after graduation, before he moved on to trade oilseed as his career moved more definitively into trading and procurement. “The highlight is no day is ever the same,” he says. “It’s an absolutely lovely industry.”
Now the senior raw material manager at ABN, Andrew is responsible for proteins, and in particular soybean meal and its associated sustainability agenda. “This is a very hot topic at the moment,” he admits. “It’s giving us a lot of work to do trying to get prepped for hopefully some positive scenarios come December 2024.”
Andrew’s industry training included taking part in the PIP scheme from 2017-18. “As a non-farmer from a non-farming background I was a bit apprehensive, but it’s one of the best things I’ve done in my career to date,” he insists. “I was genuinely in awe of all the information sharing.”
From pools to poultry
A dramatic career change and passion for the poultry industry has helped Stephanie Pedrick win the Zoetis-NFU Poultry Trainee Award.
Pedrick received her trophy at the British Pig & Poultry Fair from James Porritt, UK pig and poultry business manager at Zoetis. She also collected a £1,000 Zoetis-sponsored training grant that she plans to put towards a veterinary or nutritional course enabling bird health and welfare to be monitored more efficiently.
Pedrick and fellow finalists Emily Green and Liv Robinson also receive invites to the Egg & Poultry Industry Conference in Newport in the autumn.
A career as a swimming pool engineer was originally on Pedrick’s radar, before she discovered an allergy to chlorine that put paid to that option. She instead became a scuba diving instructor and then spent five years in the recycling sector before a move to Devon led to an unexpected job opening as an operative at P.D. Hook (Hatcheries). “I absolutely loved it,” she says. “I became fascinated by the world of chicken and I’ve never looked back.”
The judges said they were inspired by the approach of Pedrick towards the industry. “We were extremely impressed by Stephanie’s genuine enthusiasm and excitement towards the poultry industry,” said John Kenyon, national veterinary manager at Zoetis. “These qualities have helped her build her career and progress into management in a relatively few years. Stephanie is keen to encourage others to look towards the poultry industry for a worthwhile career.”
NFU poultry adviser Tom Glen added: “We were particularly impressed by Stephanie’s thirst for knowledge and enthusiasm for the poultry sector, as well as her approach to problem solving to continuously improve the welfare and performance of the birds in her care.”