Friars Pride is celebrating appointing Emma Selby to its Board of Directors.
After almost eight years with Friars Pride, Emma Selby felt honoured to have been appointed as Procurement Director and joins Managing Director Rebecca Lord as the second current female on the board.
Since joining the company in April 2013 as a buyer, Emma has progressed in recent years to become Head of Purchasing and manages a talented team responsible for procuring all the ambient and frozen products Friars Pride sells across its seven depots.
On accepting the appointment, Emma said:
“I was overwhelmed as it was quite unexpected at the time. It is a huge privilege. At Friars Pride we are one big family. The team is really strong, and I am excited for the year ahead.”
Friars Pride has always paved the way for staff to take on key leadership positions and it continues to challenge the status quo to ensure that not only more women hold senior positions within the industry, but that just as importantly everyone is judged on their own merit and ability to do the job.
“We have a number of talented women in senior positions within Friars Pride, and across the industry I feel times are changing and we will hopefully start to see more female directors coming through,” says Emma.
Congratulating Emma on her appointment, Rebecca said: “I am delighted to welcome Emma onto the board of directors. She thoroughly deserves this promotion, showing tremendous dedication to Friars Pride and commerciality and strength required to be Procurement Director.”
Despite the challenges the industry has faced during the past year, Emma is encouraged by how quickly it responded, and the way businesses adapted to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I embrace challenges every day at work. What matters is how we react, learn and deal with them. We have seen this within the fish & chip industry during the past 12 months. The resilience and ‘carry on’ attitude, has kept the nation fuelled with great fish & chips.
“Friars Pride has also adapted its business while keeping staff and customers safe. In the circumstances we have reacted as well as any business could have done. Now we are here to support all our customers during the year ahead, which we know will be so much better for everyone than 2020.”
Friars Pride is expecting this year to be extremely busy, and the purchasing department will be further strengthened with the appointment of an additional purchasing assistant.
“With most people expected to staycation this year, we expect the seaside to have a record year and our job is to make sure increased demand for stock is met.
“Purchasing for the fish & chip industry will undoubtably change given some of the imminent product changes including trans fats legislation and the single use packaging directive, both of which are big changes for the industry.”
Emma is looking forward to having all the Friars Pride family back together again and having face to face meetings, and away from work, Emma enjoys spending time with her family and friends and watching films.