Herluf Thun Rasmussen

Services, coaching, consultancy and training offered within: Quality & Food Safety Management. Innovation & Product Development, meat or plant based. Quality and Food Safety culture. Due diligence compliance. Raw material, processing equipment & ingredients supply. Food processing technology.

We are specializing in manufacturing a wide range of frozen & chilled products that include; Beef, Chicken, Lamb, Turkey, Fish, Pastries, Desserts & recently Ready Meals from International cuisines. A strong local brand with exports to the ME region and supplying the QSR market including McDonalds, Subway, Papa John's, Charleys and many more.

Don is the second largest smallgoods manufacturer in Australia and the brand is the most recognised brand for cooked meats, bacon and smallgoods.The company have amalgamated several factories and made significant investment in a large one site 44000 sq meter operation basically holding 4 factories (streams) under one roof; Salami and dry cured products, Smallgoods, Bacon and Ham. We have recruited new technical and quality talent and changed the approach from a QC culture to a “business partner” approach where the lead technologists supports each stream. Raw material quality has been reviewed and our processing yields have dramatically improved as has finished product quality. This approach is clearly paying off, we are winning significant new business from the competition. There is significant drive in innovation inspired from travels to Europe, USA and Canada from where we have gained ideas, new trends and modified them to suit the Australian market. Don supply the largest and most demanding food service customers and around 50% of our sales are to this sector. Customers include McDonalds, KFC, Subway, Wendy’s and many more. Our retail products are distributed and represented through all the major multiple retailers as well as the independent trade. The quality culture of this business has transformed over the past 12 months to one where our operations team has taken full ownership, resulting in reduction in quality and foreign material complaints.

BM is a vertically integrated Turkey farming and processing business. They had 3 factories in Norfolk and Suffolk plus factories in Germany and Hungary employing around 2000 people with a turnover of £300m. I was recruited to a new role to head up the UK technical teams (40 staff) following a reorganisation of the technical function. Initially to coach a talented technical team and push the already high technical standards even further. The company has a strong brand position and trade with all the major multiples as well as supplying own label turkey products to Tesco, JS and Morrisons. In addition they supply the food service market and exports as well as supplying raw materials for M&S products. All sites improved to BRC A grade status and one site received the Tesco Values Award for most improved supplying factory in 2011. We were the first UK food firm to achieve the German Q&S standard in 2010. Also first poultry company to improve biosecurity by using Biocote Silver protection in our bird transport crates I left this role in November 2012 when I was offered a Technical Director role for George Weston Foods in Australia.

Managing the technical functions for 5 sites, main board member. The company had experienced significant growth through acquisitions and customer growth. They had opened a brand new 125000 sq foot site and struggled to maintain the momentum with technical strength, had a poor culture and lack of customer confidence at a time of expected commercial growth. My immediate challenge was to rebuild the technical team for two key sites, demonstrate technical strength and regain customer confidence in the technical team. This was achieved initially using interim technical specialists whilst recruiting for permanent positions but also through re-organising the technical structure, utilising current strengths in the team. The objective was to transform the culture of this business to one that operationally was technically lead, innovative, attracting the best technical management and to become leader in their class within the Seafood industry. Introduced RF technology for tempering and defrosting. During my leadership, we gained Co-op approval and launched 6 products with them. Commenced business with ASDA with our own brand, followed by ASDA own label approval launching 22 products with them. We also launched 15 new products with Iceland from our sites in UK and co-packers in Spain, Germany and China. Our main site passed the ACC audit as the first seafood processing plant in Europe with a 91% score. In addition we held MSC approval and organic accreditation approval of key sites.

Established , developed and ran a profitable consultancy and interim management business. For 5 years, I managed all the technical aspects of UK’s third largest Food Service business and audited their portfolio of over 50 branded suppliers to the BRC Global standard. UK representation and Marketing of a major Food Consulting & Project Firm Preparation for a Danish meat company to enter the UK food market. Assisted business with the preparation to enter the UK food scene, including brochures, specifications, product range and exhibiting at the Food & Drink 2004 which was a success. From 70 leads I took on the cold calling of new prospective customers and established sales with regional distributors in Wales, Scotland and a number of direct customers in England. Consultancy and Interim assignments for Sasco Sauces, Pinneys of Scotland, Kinnerton, Atwells Turkeys, Traditional Norfolk Poultry, Norlax A/S, Tano, Bowes of Norflok, Tican Foods (Denmark and Poland) and Bernard Matthews. I also provided specific training packages to food businesses using my SOFHT training.

The company was awaiting the arrival of a permanent Technical Executive and I covered this role with hand over during Feb/March. Also responsible for setting up a formal hygiene function and introducing novel cleaning methods and cleaning chemicals specifically to deal with allergens. Completed their annual BRC audit to Grade A Accredited status. Working with a key customer and external laboratories developing analytical approach for nut testing. M&S worth approx £20M, group turnover over £70M, supplying own label to all main retailers and owns a strong leading brand in novelty confectionery/chocolate/bakery products. Heading a working party and working with the team towards their M&S PPC audit, completing a gap analysis against M&S latest protocols. Carried out supplier audits with particular focus on allergens and nuts. Advised on new technical strategy and setting fresh technical/quality KPi’s for the business.