My food & drink job: Vic Gomm, head of off-trade, Jubel

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Name: Vic Gomm

Age: 28

Job title: Head of off-trade

Company & location: Jubel, London

Education: Food Marketing & Nutrition BSc at Newcastle University

As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up? Up until about the age of 16 I really wanted to be a vet! But then I did some work experience in an exotic pet shop and decided it maybe wasn’t for me.

Why did you decide to go for a career in food & drink? I honestly didn’t know what I wanted to do, so I really did land in food & drink quite accidentally! When I was looking at uni courses I basically just thought about what I really loved, and I was (still am!) a massive foodie.

Once I was studying Food Marketing & Nutrition I realised I had a real passion for the commercial side of food & drink, and went from there.

“It’s equally important to learn what’s not for you as much as what is”

Explain your job to us in a sentence (or two): I head up the off-trade channel at Jubel, so I look after sales delivery across our grocery & retail customers. That involves working as a team with our customers to show how Jubel will grow their categories, and bringing them into our vision to pioneer a new space of fruit lager.

What does a typical day look like for you? Honestly, no day is the same! I think people might jump to thinking of the ‘glamorous’ parts of a commercial role like customer sell-ins and brand days, but the reality is that most days aren’t like that.

Often I’m knee-deep in spreadsheets to track and understand performance or category insights, I might be planning and collaborating with our grocery partners on opportunities like distribution growth or strategic activation, and a lot of week is also spent working with my team on how we can be the best beer brand to work with in retail.

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Tell us how you went about applying for your job: I didn’t actually apply to the role, it was more of a ‘right place right time’ situation.

The CEO reached out to me on LinkedIn, and whilst I wasn’t looking for a new role I was massively motivated by the level of autonomy in a small business, and by the undeniable category rationale for Jubel.

In the final stage interview I do remember Harry (head of commercial) and Jesse (CEO) asking what my go-to beer order would be in the pub, and I said I was more of a wine drinker! Pleased to report that one has changed.

What’s the best part about working for a food & drink company? The best part about working for Jubel is that I get to work with the most incredible and motivated group of people who are colleagues, but also true friends (plus, the annual Jubel ski trip of course!).

In food & drink more generally, I think the best part is how dynamic the industry is, and also how ‘applicable’ it is for every single person. Everyone is a consumer of food & drink so it’s an industry that a huge amount of people interact with on a daily basis – that’s what makes me excited.

And what’s the biggest misconception people have about working in food & drink? That it’s easy to get into retail. I think from the outside looking in, it’s easy to see brand presence in retail or grocery and to think that’s an inevitable stage of growth once you have a brilliant product. The reality is that buyers are inundated with incredible products every day, and there’s so much that goes into winning a listing with any retailer (and keeping it). Sadly, supermarket shelves are not elastic.

It’s also not necessarily a linear journey once you do gain a listing, and there’s a huge amount of behind the scenes work that goes into getting product on supermarket shelves and recruiting shoppers to enable continued growth of range and distribution.

What advice would you give to other young people looking to get into the food & drink industry? Think about what motivates you – and chase it. I couldn’t do what I do every day if I didn’t absolutely love both Jubel and the retail landscape.

It’s also hard to know that from the off, so I’d say it’s equally important to learn what’s not for you as much as what is. I spent time working in a sandwich factory as a process technologist, and at Mars Inc in a number of grad scheme rotation roles, before I landed at Jubel.

What’s your ultimate career dream? I want to really define a new category space for fruit lager led by Jubel, so that one day every supermarket has a bay for fruit lager in its own right – that’s a real career ambition for me.

That, or maybe one day open a cake shop called Victoria’s Sponges!