Name: Charlotte Hyde
Age: 24
Job title: Assistant brand manager
Company & location: Indie Bay Snacks, London.
Education: Sherborne Girls, A2: English Literature, Drama and Music Technology then went on to pursue my love of drama in Bristol.
Why did you decide to go for a career in food? I became extremely interested in cooking and baking during lockdown and started following many fmcg brands. I had a careers meeting with Clare Blampied, MD at Saclà UK to chat through my skills and ambitions, which was super helpful! Clare then offered me a six-month placement at Saclà UK as an e-commerce marketing assistant. Once that came to an end, I knew I still wanted to work in food and drink so went on the hunt for jobs within the industry.
Explain your job to us in a sentence (or two): I manage all things social and have recently played a big role in new packaging design. My main job is to make sure that the brand’s identity and image are translated effectively in order to maintain consistency for our engagers and customers. We have recently had a shift in strategy to allow us to properly understand our consumer to make our brand as accessible and inclusive as possible, so this is all supported within my work.
What does a typical day look like for you? As we are a small (but mighty) team, we all muck in and get the vital jobs done. On a Monday we all state our top three priorities for the week to allow it to be as focused as possible. I work on exciting and important brand projects, for example we recently have just joined Buy Women Built, a new consumer movement that spotlights and supports women-built businesses. I had a lot of fun organising International Women’s Day around this!
Tell us about how you went about applying for your job. I was recruited on LinkedIn by Emma Salah at Young Foodies who saw a fit and made it happen! My interview process was two stages. Stage one was quite general, just getting to know me as a person, what interests me and my past experience in the industry etc. For the final stage I had to prepare two tasks: one around social media and the other a scenario about how I would market a specific NPD. I had so much fun preparing for these tasks, which made the process way less scary and more manageable. Applying for jobs can be relentless and often hard, but just don’t give up, the perfect job will come.
“The more I grow, the more I want to be involved with big business decisions”
What’s the best part about working for a food company? Working for a food company (especially a startup) is a lot of fun and extremely fast-paced. All food brands have the same target: creating awareness and driving rate of sale. These focused goals really drive me to want to do a good job. Nothing beats the feeling of seeing products on shelf that you’ve helped design. It is so fulfilling to see my work come to life.
And what’s the biggest misconception people have about working in food & drink? When it comes to food and drink, I think the misconception initially comes from people thinking about huge factories that just churn out a product. Wrong! So much effort and time is gone into every strategy and product and are all very carefully produced.
What advice would you give to other young people looking to get into the food & drink industry? Go for it and be curious. Stay engaged with your favourite food & drink brands and keep up to date with all their news. There are so many roles that go into food and drink companies, I am convinced there’s something for everyone!
What’s your ultimate career dream? To keep learning and expanding my knowledge around branding/marketing. I learn something new most weeks. The more I grow, the more I want to be involved with big business decisions, which hopefully will lead me to become a full brand manager and manage someone. I would love to guide a food marketing newbie and teach them all the wonderful things I have learnt. Now I am in food, I can’t see myself ever wanting to change industry. Who knows, maybe one day I’ll launch my own food product!
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