Meet The Team
We believe that by trusting, respecting and empowering our workforce, we can deliver superior results and become a business that’s an industry leader in both staff and customer satisfaction. Our staff charter ensures this for every member of staff, and the feedback we get from our customers shows that it works.
Jon Hammond
Group Managing Director
As Owner and Group Managing Director of Phoenix and our sister farming businesses, Jon has guided the company’s direction with passion and vision. Under his leadership, we’ve achieved consistent year-on-year growth. Jon’s enthusiasm for the business and dedication to mentoring the team have helped foster a positive, motivated workplace culture. Now, he continues to build on that success, driving the group forward with a clear focus on the future.
Emma Woods
General Manager
Emma joined Phoenix in 2014, bringing over a decade of experience in agronomy, farming, quality management systems, and food product development. Over the years, her role has evolved, allowing her to pursue her passion for team leadership and staff development. Emma is committed to delivering consistent customer satisfaction while fostering a strong culture of food safety and quality within the team.
Nick Grogan
Group Commercial Manager
Nick joined the Phoenix group of businesses back in 2022 and leads the commercial function across all of our brands. With a background in oil trading, Nick’s knowledge and experience is vital in helping guide our customers whilst also ensuring we continue to offer market leading ‘value for money services’ across our contract packing operation. He is heavily involved in helping shape our future, and since joining has played a key role in the acquisition and integration of other businesses and brands into the Phoenix Group.
Sophie Hennessy
Group Technical Manager
Sophie leads the group technical function across our family of businesses, bringing a wealth of expertise from several major food sectors. Her deep understanding of retailer quality system requirements is a vital asset to our operations. In addition, her versatility in aligning with wider group objectives enhances our ability to work cohesively, enabling greater agility in delivering exceptional service to our customers.
James Critchley
Commercial & Procurement Manager
James brought extensive expertise in forecasting and team management to our company when he joined in 2015. He plays a vital role in driving robust planning and commercial operations across the business, ensuring efficiency and a consistently positive customer experience. As our primary customer liaison, James’s meticulous attention to detail and strong organisational skills are instrumental in delivering exceptional service and meeting client expectations.
Sarah Eadie
Operations Manager
Sarah joined Phoenix in early 2018, bringing valuable operational expertise and clear leadership to the team. She ensures the factory operates in line with defined protocols and consistently meets key performance indicators. Her ability to bring practical cost effective business solutions to our operations is key. As the leader of our operational function, Sarah plays a crucial role in shaping and delivering a robust future strategy for the business.
Darren Blackband
Planning & Logistics Manager
Darren brought a wealth of logistical and planning knowledge when he joined the team in 2016. Ensuring deliveries to and from site are managed proficiently on a just in time basis. Darren manages all of our seed intake and crushing requirements in the business, the very heart of what we do. Implementing the high level and vital finer detail requirements in all our site production and crushing operations.
Georgia Milne
Quality Systems Manager
Georgia joined Phoenix in 2022, bringing with her a solid background in technical requirements and hands-on farming experience. Since then, she has expanded her expertise in both production and technical operations, playing a vital role in maintaining and enhancing our quality systems on site and with our customers.
Piotr Cuper
Warehouse Supervisor
Piotr has over a decade of experience in warehouse operations, including intake and outload supervision. He leads our on-site seed oil crushing operations with a team of highly skilled operators. A true craftsman in his field, Piotr oversees all new novel seed trials and plays a key role in delivering consistently high-quality finished products.
Employee
Charter
We recognise that no two people are the same, and we don’t expect our employees to conform to a single way of working. Our workforce combines a core team of contracted staff with a wider flexible workforce, enabling us to draw on both experience and reliability while remaining agile enough to respond to changing customer demand during our busiest periods.
All employees sign a staff charter upon joining us, setting out agreed working practices. This clearly defines what is expected of them, regardless of their role, and just as importantly, outlines what they can expect from us in return.
The Phoenix team have been able to cope with our ever-increasing demand, bottling bulk shipments from overseas and manufacturing finished stock for containers for export. Phoenix has the British Global BRCGS AA* quality standard, and their management team and workforce are skilled, professional and a pleasure to work with.
Bob
Chair, Director & Co-founder - FMCG Brand
Who we work with
