Stu shares with us his interesting journey to his current role at Quorn, driven my his passion for food that is good for people and the planet.
“Anything to do with food, I said ‘yes’ to because I had passion and was passionate to drive education.”
Highlights:
Stu’s passion to learn about food led him to the world of plant-based catering, food that is good for people and the planet
He loves that his role is so varied and he gets to live his purpose by educating and sharing delicious food
Stu advises to do what you love and immerse yourself in that world by taking every opportunity to learn
My origin story is that I grew up in the kitchen of my parent’s restaurant until my teen years, when I decided to go into the music industry and toured with bands for a decade. During my time touring, being stuck in a van, I found I was more interested in finding good places to eat in the cities we were visiting than the music itself. I realised my love was shifting from music and I wanted to get back into working with food. I started to learn that the food we consume has a massive effect on the planet and I realised that industrial agriculture is not the same as the animal husbandry that I grew up with on my family’s old farm. I found that I wanted to work with food, but in a way that meant the food was good for the planet as well as people. I then did various roles exploring the world of plant based and vegan food including: appearing in TV shows, working within the media for magazines and books, running supper clubs at festivals and on canal boats, being a part of opening restaurants, and learning how to set up a kitchen. Anything to do with food, I said “yes” to because I had passion and was passionate to drive education. The skills I learned while touring with a band really benefited the various roles I explored, such as photography and media work.
Through lots of networking, I had the opportunity to work at Quorn, which gave me the chance to get the food I wanted to make out to as many people as possible. My role at Quorn is Director of Culinary Innovation. The job is very varied, I stay up to date with what food is on trend in street food, restaurants, and magazines, and use these trends to develop new products with Quorn’s Mycoprotein. Another part of my role is to be passionate about food and encourage other people to be excited about food. I always bring food to our sessions to develop the food culture here. I also work on internal communications and digital marketing. I love that my job is so varied, it is different everyday. Sometimes I want to be involved with even more, but there’s not enough time in the day! I really resonate with the company's ethos of good food that is for people and the planet. I don't feel like I am doing my job for money, I feel like I am working towards my purpose.
Where possible, we operate zero-waste kitchens, which means we utilise byproducts (the parts you might throw in the bin) by making them into other ingredients. We then take these ingredients to educate through presentations to fellow colleagues and customers such as supermarkets to help them see the value of the food they might usually waste. I also sit on a sustainability panel where we share ideas and initiatives to make more green decisions on our processes from factory to office, such as using more sustainable materials and reducing their waste.
Find something you love and that will drive you to be in love with what you do. If you love food, work with food! You will always have a job, because people always need to eat! If you start as a pot wash at a restaurant, you get to learn how kitchens run. Take every opportunity to learn, understand food and study it. This might lead to a job as a cook, then a chef, then an executive, then a food service division working with massive catering contracts! There are so many opportunities out there!
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