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Melinda Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, said recently that "Companies often blame their lack of board diversity on a lack of qualified female candidates. Well, in 2017, that frankly sounds like a failure of imagination."

This failure of imagination is happening in ALL food & drink companies - retail and manufacturers - in the UK and not just in relation to a lack of gender diversity. Not a single company has a fair representation of women, ethnic minorities, and disabled people among senior management and at board level.

There are so many of us around who can fill these roles if it wasn't for the (un)conscious bias that permeates job hiring & promotion processes. Wilfred, getting companies to include diversity clauses in supplier contracts is a good step but much much more needs to be done to avoid it becoming yet another tick box exercise with no teeth.