Joanne recently took on a new role as Group Colleague Training Lead for Princes for the UK. She is also a Pride in Princes winner, our awards which celebrate colleagues who go the extra mile to bring our values to life. Joanne says:

Unlike some of my colleagues, I didn’t begin my career in FMCG. Before I joined Princes I had worked in retail management for fifteen years, with brands including Jack Wills and Kurt Geiger.

Retail was badly hit by the pandemic, and it gave me the opportunity to rethink my career. I wanted a sector with more job security and the food and drink industry made sense to me.

In January 2021, I applied for a job at Princes in Cardiff (our Centre of Juice Excellence) as a Production Operator working shifts. Although there were 1,400 applicants for the job, I was determined to get it and just kept pestering them until they gave me an interview! I was delighted to get the job.

Eight months later I was promoted to Manufacturing Team Lead where I developed my skills in change management and process improvement.

I spent time at our Bradford site, where we make our carbonated and diluted soft drinks, and took part in our Lean Lighthouse Academy.

The programme is designed to teach the tools and behaviours needed to maximise operational excellence of the business and it was great to meet Andy Sargent, Head of Operational Performance Transformation, who created the roadmap, and has also become a mentor for me.

I used the skills the Academy gave me to work on a project looking at the new chilled lines in Cardiff, including the logistics of how we could get our refrigerated tankers of juice from Poland to the UK more efficiently.

In 2024 I was keen for a different challenge and moved into operational compliance training. This is important because it involves analysing each of our sites to make sure they’re all consistent and that colleagues understand the laws, regulations and company policies that apply to their day-to-day responsibilities.

Being ‘customer obsessed’ is one of our values and we want to make it as easy as possible for our customers and retailers to do business with us – we have a focus on upskilling colleagues on the job and are in the process of digitising our Learning & Development system.

It’s fantastic to help to shape the future of what training is at Princes.