In safe hands at Greencore

And it is a far cry from his first job at 16 working in purchase ledger at Kwik Save. When he left the company 24 years later, he was trading director fresh foods, experience he then took to United Co-op. Three years later, he moved over to the Co-op's central buying company CRTG where he was responsible for purchasing beers, wines, tobacco, newspapers and magazines.

He was tempted to switch from retail to manufacturing when he learned about the changes in the purchasing function currently under way at Greencore and the part he could play in it. "I was convinced that the lead buyer function would be a challenge I would relish," says Hepton.

What this means in practice is the company moving more and more towards central purchasing on important ingredients and product groups. Although there has always been a central purchasing function for the Hazlewood companies, new owner Greencore is taking this a step further by appointing lead buyers in several areas. For instance, Hepton is currently formulating a purchasing strategy for liquid dairy, cheese, fats and spreads and liquid egg products. These are used in great quantities at the Kiveton (Sheffield) site, where Hepton is based, which manufactures chilled quiche, chilled ready meals and Sutherland spreads. Other colleagues are formulating policies in other areas, for example meat and vegetables, oils and packaging and there are five lead buyers in total.

"We are concentrating on optimising our buying power," says Hepton. And there is certainly some buying power to optimise as Greencore Group is an £800m plc with 9,000 employees operating in five countries in the European Union and with a joint-venture in Russia. The group is involved in ingredients, primarily malt and sugar, but over two-thirds of turnover is in convenience foods. Greencore is a major player in sandwiches, pizza, quiche, ready meals, Yorkshire puddings, desserts, sauces and soups, dressings, pickles and also mineral water.

So suppliers to all the individual operating units could be in for some changes quite soon. Hepton's spend, for example, will reach £50m in the coming months and although he will be spending more, he intends to spend it with fewer people. "Rationalisation of our supplier base is inevitable if we are to have more meaningful relationships with our suppliers," he says. He laughs when he talks about all this relationship building as it is a far cry from Kwik Save, where he was prone to sometimes bang on the desk to get what he wanted. "I learned at United Co-op and then continue to learn here at Hazlewood that you have to play on relationships and not just on your volumes to gain success," he says.

He does, however, take the relationship building side of the purchasing function very seriously and believes that suppliers should work more collaboratively across all departments, as it is the only way suppliers can truly understand what is required by the business. "This also gets away from purely the buyer-seller relationship so we can all make improvements," he says. "I am, however, the gatekeeper and it is my job to ensure we don't add costs along the way.

"My door is always open to new suppliers and I can be contacted via our website http://www.greencore.com under purchasing, but I will always give our sitting tenants a chance to respond," he says. "If we disregard the existing relationship over a penny, then it's probably not a relationship worth having," he asserts.

Hepton believes he is a man of his word and is firm but fair in all negotiations. One thing he is keen to emphasise to any new (and existing) suppliers is the nutritional aspects such as the need to reduce salt as far as possible in their product range. "The need to reduce salt is paramount," he says.

"Trust is also key to any relationship and our suppliers have to understand the tough environment we operate in," he says. "I certainly have more sympathy now that I'm on this side of the fence."

Negotiating is something Hepton loves doing, along with spending other people's money. He is, he says, not so good at spending his own.FM

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