We can work it out
David Matwij, head of operations, Hain Frozen Foods, Fakenham and Manchester
I'm not very good at switching off - just ask my wife. I'm always thinking about how to do things better and scribbling ideas on a pad at every hour of the day and night! She'd say it's probably given me prematurely grey hair but I love the fact that every day I'm doing something new. I also thrive on pressure. I'm passionate about what I do and really proud of what we've achieved here over the last 18 months.
When I joined the Fakenham plant in January last year, the business was growing, but the factory was not aligned with that growth. The shift patterns weren't working, efficiency was nowhere near where I knew it could be, service levels weren't up to scratch, stock levels were too high and absence rates were too high, with high levels of agency staff being used.
There was a culture of lean manufacturing, but it wasn't being executed properly. Lots of things were being done in a certain way just because 'we've always done it like that'. Everything needed to be challenged.
In the first few weeks I tried to stand back and assess everyone's strengths and weaknesses. But I also made changes. I brought in some new people and some people left. I am also very demanding and results-driven. I never give up. People know when I'm being serious - but I also like a laugh and a joke.
There has been an enormous amount of change here over the last 18 months but the key thing has been getting the key performance indicators (KPIs) established and improving communications within the business.
We've got KPIs for everything, from yield, utilities, absence rates, stockholding and giveaway to labour, wastage, cases versus plan. You name it, we measure it! But we don't measure things for the sake of it. There are action points and things get changed. Targets are set, reviewed and set again.
There are also lots of different levels of communication. I have a 30-minute meeting every day with the departmental managers and weekly meetings in which we go over the business performance and forecasts for the next week and month. But every other month, I also talk to the entire workforce about how we are doing, what's coming up, new products, recruitment, health and safety and any other important issues.
It's about making everyone aware of what we are doing, why we are doing it and where money is being spent so they feel accountable and responsible. How much does 1kg of wasted product cost this business? What's our target on giveaway? Why? Can we change it? Ultimately, I am trying to communicate that it's not just me that's responsible for the budget.
The really rewarding thing is how much progress we've made on all of the KPIs. Take service levels. Just over a year ago, one customer had walked away from us because our service levels were not good enough. Today we are dealing with them again and have picked up a significant amount of new business as well.
We've also achieved service levels of 99-100% with far lower levels of stock. For packaging and ingredients, we have no more than 12 weeks of stock. For finished products, we have no more than three and half weeks. I'm also really proud of the fact that absence levels have come down from 7% to 1.9%.
Perhaps the biggest change that's been brought about from what we call Project Enterprise has been a re-alignment of shift patterns. We used to work pretty much 24 hours for six days. Now we are working far fewer hours - Monday to Thursday 7am to 5pm and a Friday shift - but producing significantly more product. If we were running 24/7 now, we could probably produce 157M units - we're doing 60M now, so that's tremendous capacity at our disposal - which is just as well because we're on course to double our output from 2009 to 2010.
Everything we make here is frozen and meat-free. While the frozen meat-free market is only growing at 2%, our brands are growing 34% year-on-year and some of the biggest sellers - such as the Linda McCartney meat free sausages - are growing at 44% year-on-year. We've also completely relaunched the Linda McCartney range and added a lot of new products including Balti Curry, Moroccan Tagine and a Vegetarian Roast. With this kind of growth, we have had to become far more efficient.
On sausages, for example, we used to have 14 or 15 people on the line, but half of them were not being very productive. Now we only have six to eight people on the line but we've managed to increase the throughput from 350 to 450 cases an hour without any automation.
To automate or not to automate?
The company did actually spend a lot of money on equipment to automate putting the sausages into the boxes before I arrived but it wasn't fit for purpose, and was never commissioned. I am looking at this again now but we are being very cautious because robots are very expensive and I normally aim for a payback in 12 months.
I always attend the Anuga Foodtec trade fair to see what's new on the market, but there is only so much we could automate here and if we do more, in the short-term, it will probably be at the end of the line for building pallets.
Environmentally, we've also made massive leaps. We were ranked as the UK's greenest food company by the Sunday Times this year so we must be doing something right! Everything is separated and recycled - or in the case of food waste goes to animal feed. We've also significantly reduced our use of water and halved the amount we were spending on energy every weekend just by switching things off. Good maintenance also helps drive efficiency - preventing or immediately addressing leaks in boilers, steam plants and compressors ensures we don't waste energy - or money.
But the big news right now is the £1.5M we're pumping into a new desserts plant, which will create 35 new jobs. We are investing in a desserts operation that will produce hot desserts such as, jam roly-poly, chocolate sponge puddings and so on. We are already working with key retailers for new launches in September.
I ended up doing a deal to pick up all the kit from an ex-Greencore site in a job lot and things have moved very fast since then. We're planning pre-commissioning trials on August 10 and aim to supply the market a month later, so it's been very busy here planning the recruitment programme, the building and planning how the production schedule will work.
So what's it like working with the McCartneys? People always ask if I've met Sir Paul. The answer is: 'Not yet', but the sales and marketing people get to see the family a fair bit. They actually play quite a hands-on role; we run every new product by Mary, Stella and Sir Paul. It's part of the relationship. They always take a very keen interest. In fact, the slogan on the packs: 'food to come home to' is Paul's own phrase.
INTERVIEW BY ELAINE WATSON
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FACTORY FACTS
Location: Hain Frozen Foods UK, Holt Road, Fakenham, Norfolk, NR21 8EH
Tel: 01328 863251
Staff: 184 full-time equivalents
Products: 67 stock keeping units, all frozen, meat-free and nut-free, including Linda McCartney pies, sausages, bakes, curries and lasagne; Realeat; Weight Watchers; Ross and PickMe lines and retailer own-label products
Growth: "Sales of the Linda McCartney brand are up 46% year-on-year; Ross meals are up 41% year-on-year. Overall, our brands are up 34% year-on-year against overall market growth for meat-free of 2%."
Turnover: "We're on course to turn over £25M this year."
Output: c15.8M cases
Customers: Multiples and second tier retailers
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PERSONAL
Name: David Matwij
Age: 44
Career highlights: "There are loads, but probably maintaining customer service levels at QV Foods - where I was before I joined Hain while we were redeveloping the factory. And, of course, being linked with the McCartneys."
Domestic: Married with three children aged 11, eight and four
Outside work: Spending time with the family and bike riding when time allows
