What can I offer?
Over the years, I’ve worked on every part of the food and drink supply chain. From growing and manufacturing, through to direct to consumer and retail sales. This broad experience helps me quickly understand your business and some of the challenges you might be facing. Here are some of the areas I specialise in:
Strategy
A good strategy shouldn’t be complex. It should be a simple message to your business on what you are trying to achieve, and how you’re going to get there.
I can walk you through a process that will identify what type of strategy you need, and help you identify what you need to work on.
Product Management & NPD
You probably have existing products in your business – they need careful management to ensure they are safe, compliant, profitable and future proof.
New products are crucial for most businesses, they can be subtle variations, or totally new concepts. With a huge failure rate, it’s important that you invest your time and money wisely to ensure they are best positioned for success.
David can help you identify the right projects to work on, and support your team in the development and launch of these products.
Category Management
Knowing how to position your products in the marketplace is the heart of category management. Effective category management will make it clear who your product is designed for, where they are going to buy it, why they will buy it.
David can help you map out how to position your product, and identify commercial strategies that will help you unlock profitable growth.
Brand Licensing
Licensing is a powerful way to grow a brand quickly, sustainably and strategically. However, it requires careful management.
David has worked as a licensee for brands including Disney, Thornton’s, Warner Brothers and Jack Daniel’s, and has lived the ‘best in class’ experience of how to manage a licensing program.
David has also developed a brand licensing program for ‘outwards’ licensing, and negotiated a number of licensing contracts.
Exit Planning
Many Food and Drink businesses are small to medium sized businesses who are owner operated.
Making a transition from owner operated to be in a position to sell requires careful management.
David can help you create a roadmap for exiting your business. The plan could take a number of years to implement, so identifying what needs to be done early is crucial.
Compliance & Operations
Food Safety should be at the heart of every food and drink business. David has worked extensively (with partners), on food safety and compliance across multiple regions.
David can help you conduct a gap analysis of your food safety systems, packaging compliance and practices.
From an operations side, David can help improve your supplier management and work with you to identify operational strategies that position your business for growth.
A Proud ‘Generalist’
Broad range of skills, huh? These are the qualities of a ‘generalist’. David is proud not to be ‘pigeon-holed’ into one skillset. Instead, he has a good understanding of many, allowing a holistic approach to setting strategies that will help grow your business.
Where David needs deeper-dives into a particular area, he has a broad network of experts in their own field who he can collaborate with on projects. Good things happen when like-minded people work together with agility to react to the needs of a business.
Interim Support
Unpredictable things happen, but business goes on. David’s broad experience positions him well to quickly get up to speed with your business. His strong people management skills make him well suited to offering short term cover for key positions in your business while you find a permanent solution.
Ask David Craig 