My food & drink job: Torin Zieboll, Christmas and Easter brand manager, Nestlé

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Torin Zieboll - Nestlé UK & Ireland

Name: Torin Zieboll

Age: 23

Job title: Brand manager for Christmas and Easter confectionery

Company & location: Nestlé UK & Ireland at the York office

Education: Chartered Management degree apprenticeship at Nestlé

As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up? Having confirmed this with my mum, who agreed that I most certainly was keen on this, I wanted to be a train driver. I had model railways sets as a kid, and one friend’s dad had a proper Hornby model set that we used to pull out from under the sofa to secretly play with.

Why did you decide to go for a career in food & drink? When I was looking for apprenticeship schemes, those in fmcg stuck out – and I knew they would be enjoyable – because they’re recognisable brands.

I think for lots of people, finding your passion often comes once you’re in a job, but I was fortunate to have that passion already and an in-built understanding of the Nestlé products I enjoyed as a child. I know first-hand how a kid receiving an Easter egg feels and I now have the opportunity to channel that energy into my work, which I hope means kids get to feel the same joy I felt as a child too.

Explain your job to us in a sentence (or two): Myself and my team are the managers of Easter and Christmas – anything to do with seasonal confectionery goes through my team in some capacity.

“I get lots of Kit Kat flavour recommendations, but if they won’t work for the majority of chocolate eaters, they just won’t get made!”

What does a typical day look like for you? Every day is genuinely different as my role moves in a yearly cycle, split into roughly three sections.

First, we enter what we call the ‘ideation stage’, which involves an innovation safari, where we explore trends in the chocolate world and different sources of inspiration to help sketch up our ideas. Next is the product development stage in which we have to turn that idea into a reality. During this phase, I work with different teams across the business – the factories, packaging teams and product managers – to make key decisions on the products and help with artwork development.

The last stage is the ‘sell season’, which is my favourite part. We work with the sales team to build their understanding of the product before we all travel up and down the country to sell in our new product to customers. This is when I get to share my passion and energy for the product we’ve created – and hopefully persuade the customer to stock it!

Tell us how you went about applying for your job: For my apprenticeship, there were four stages including a written application, an aptitude test and a video interview.

The final stage was an assessment centre in York, which involved group activities and presentations. I had to give a presentation on self-driving trucks, and I think it was this that gave me the edge on the day. We were all given a purposefully large amount of information to sift through for the presentation and apparently, even though the assessors knew I didn’t have a clue about self-driving trucks, they believed me.

One of my main passions is public speaking and presenting, which always comes in handy for tasks like this.

Nestle Easter range 2024

What’s the best part about working for a food & drink company? The number one best part is that I get to tell my friends that I have a cool job. Everyone has heard of Nestlé and what people believe about us getting lots of chocolate is true – almost too much!

Ultimately, the best thing about working in the chocolate industry is that we leave someone at the end feeling a little happier, which lots of other businesses can’t claim. We have a team phrase that our work is all about ‘creating little smiles’ and I couldn’t agree more.

And what’s the biggest misconception people have about working in food & drink? Because food & drink brands are so well recognised and are stocked in kitchens and cupboards all around the country, you’ll get friends and family with opinions about what type of product you should be making or suggesting that something should be changed. There are so many people in the chain between manufacturing to selling our products, that it’s never as simple as you think. For instance, I get lots of Kit Kat flavour recommendations, but if they won’t work for the majority of chocolate eaters, they just won’t get made!

What advice would you give to other young people looking to get into the food & drink industry? Grades do matter, but not as much as you might think. What will make you stand out is everything else that makes you, you.

I said yes to every opportunity at school and ended up launching a public speaking club – something I’m really passionate about – which led to speaking at school reunions and helped me become the Youth MP for Yorkshire. These sorts of personal things will always help set you apart from other candidates. And a very practical tip is to use the STAR method – it’s simple, easy to remember, and has never failed me.

What’s your ultimate career dream? I’d love to have a position that is a mix between public speaking and hosting workshops for people in and out of work to help them with communicating. At work, I often see people have great ideas but struggle to communicate them. It’s so satisfying to see these ideas come to life, so I’d love to be a part of the puzzle that helps with that.

I’ve been hosting internal workshops over the last couple of months to help in-house creatives improve their presenting skills. Not only does it help them, but it helps me too as the nature of marketing lies in presenting.