My food & drink job: Freddie Davies, head of foodservice & OOH, Tenzing

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Freddie Davies TENZING

Name: Freddie Davies

Age: 25

Job title: Head of foodservice & OOH sales

Company & location: Tenzing Natural Energy, London

Education: Southampton & Cardiff University

As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up? I grew up listening to the Rolling Stones so at an early stage of my life you could find me in leopard print shirts, guitar round my neck and rocking a bandana to mimic my idol (at the time), Keith Richards. Not quite sure I knew the full extent of what it means to be Keith Richards at that age though…

Why did you decide to go for a career in food & drink? After my school studies and before I went to university I worked for Gozney, selling commercial-grade pizza ovens across the UK, and I got my first true insight into the world of food & drink.

What I found was very passionate and intelligent people mastering their craft and delivering innovation and flare, bringing joy to the people around them. In turn, I quickly realised I had this same passion. So, when I discovered Tenzing at university – a product crafted on innovation, which tasted incredible and was disrupting the UK energy market – I knew I had to get back in the game!

“Consumer habits take longer to change than you might think”

Explain your job to us in a sentence (or two): I manage our wholesale accounts such as Brakes, Bidfood, DDC and Foodbuy from both a top-down and bottom-up approach. Executing and delivering strong joint business plans with buyers, whilst also chasing new business wins to grow these channels year on year.

What does a typical day look like for you? At Tenzing, it’s impossible to have a ‘typical day’… for example, in the last two weeks I’ve been in Exeter opening a new wholesaler, Liverpool for a major trade show, Canary Wharf sampling some of the biggest offices in the UK, and sat behind my laptop in the office getting NPDs listed with the buying teams of our wholesalers.

It’s the beauty of the job, that every day is different, but it keeps you on your toes and keeps you hungry for more!

Tell us how you went about applying for your job: My friend introduced me to Tenzing in my second year of university and I was blown away by the product. I emailed the ‘info’ email account linked to the website to share my enthusiasm and desire to work for the company. After two online interviews and two in-person meetings, I was offered the role as a student ambassador.

I still remember the feeling of immense pressure after being asked by Huib [van Bockel], the founder of Tenzing, to pitch Tenzing to him in front of over half of the team.

Tenzing Range

I got over the line and after a year-and-a-half of dedicated work as a student ambassador I was offered a full-time role in foodservice after university.

I suppose I had a year-and-a-half application process of proving my skillset to the team and how much I wanted to work at Tenzing. I’m pleased to say it paid off!

What’s the best part about working for a food & drink company? Being in an industry which caters for so much innovation! There are so many brands and products emerging into the market which offer great alternatives or completely new ways of thinking. This also brings fascinating people to the industry from all walks of life, so it’s a very inspiring community to be involved in.

And what’s the biggest misconception people have about working in food & drink? How hard it is to break consumer habits! For example, every year we research data which shows that 82% of consumers would rather drink energy drinks made from natural ingredients! However, we obviously don’t have 82% share of the energy drink market… so it just goes to show consumer habits take longer to change than you might think.

What advice would you give to other young people looking to get into the food & drink industry? Where possible, aim to join a startup or a brand in rapid growth. The exposure to the everyday functionality of a growing business is invaluable knowledge capture.

The likelihood is that you will be trusted with bigger projects from an earlier stage of experience and have a more hands-on approach to the growth of a company.

What’s your ultimate career dream? Without sounding too cliché, I think I may already be living that dream… how lucky to be able to say I play a meaningful part of a company that continues to change the energy drinks game in the UK for good.

I’ve been at Tenzing for nearly four years now and to see the growth and development of the company in that time is beyond what I could’ve imagined. The dream is to see Tenzing reach the heights which we know are possible internally.