Name: Kate Harrington
Age: 29
Job title: Senior diet and health executive
Company & location: Food & Drink Federation, London
Education: BSc Food Science and Nutrition, and MA Health Sciences in Nutrition and Dietetics from University of Auckland
As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up? I wanted to be a primary school teacher when I was younger.
Why did you decide to go for a career in food & drink? I’ve always been passionate about nutrition and helping people, which led me down a path to become a dietician.
But rather than following the traditional route of working in a hospital setting, I was interested in collaborating with companies to improve diets on a large scale through the everyday products that we see on supermarket shelves. This led me to begin my career in PR/communications, working with food industry clients, before moving into a policy role at FDF.
“Food companies can have such an impact on the nation’s health and the food we all eat”
Explain your job to us in a sentence (or two): FDF is the trade association representing food and drink manufacturers, with our members ranging from large household brands through to SMEs.
In my role, I help businesses understand policy on diet, health and nutrition and also help to shape government policy in these areas. My key policy areas are healthier product innovation and reporting on healthy food sales, so I work closely with our members and stakeholders to develop a strategy on these topics.
What does a typical day look like for you? I’m in contact with nutritionists based at food businesses every day, to hear about what they are doing to support healthier diets and the challenges they face when doing this work. I’m responsible for putting together our Shaping a Healthier Future campaign, so I help showcase industry-wide progress by arranging events in Parliament and collating case studies.
The government is looking to make reporting on healthier food sales mandatory, so I’m also working with members to understand how they think this would work, and feed this back to government through the consultation. It could be an exciting next step in driving healthier product development.
Tell us how you went about applying for your job: I saw the role advertised on LinkedIn and it sounded like the perfect fit to try my first role in policy. After applying, I went through two interviews, with the second involving a task where I had to deliver a five-minute presentation.
What’s the best part about working for a food & drink company? I find it really interesting that food companies can have such an impact on the nation’s health and the food we all eat. I love having the opportunity to highlight the positive and exciting work that companies are doing in this space, from developing healthier recipes for iconic British products, innovating creative healthier new products, and supporting local communities.
I was particularly proud to launch our new Shaping a Healthier Future report, showing how our members have cut sugar, salt and calories from products by about a fifth since 2021.
And what’s the biggest misconception people have about working in food & drink? Perhaps people don’t realise just how many steps are involved in getting a product onto supermarket shelves, and also how complex it is to develop healthier products – it’s not as simple as it seems to change a recipe at scale!
The conversations with companies highlight the complexities and challenges behind it all.
What advice would you give to other young people looking to get into the food & drink industry? The food and drink industry is the largest manufacturing sector in the UK, so it’s a great industry to work in if you want to have a meaningful impact. As generic as it is, networking and making connections helps to get your foot in the door.
What’s your ultimate career dream? I want to continue working with companies to not only develop healthier products but looking more broadly at the how the food industry can work together to support people’s health. I’m lucky FDF is a great place to be able to do this.
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