282: Career Conversations: Creating new products for Asda

<div>"I never knew that my job existed," says April Dear, Senior Product and Packaging Development Manager for <a href="https://corporate.asda.com/">Asda</a>. "That's why I'm really passionate about letting younger people know about all the different paths that are out there."<br> <br> </div> <div>In this episode of the Career Conversations series, we learn all about April's role at one of the UK's biggest supermarkets.<br> <br> </div> <div>Her job means she is responsible for a large team of <a href="https://foodmatterslive.com/discover/podcast/career-conversations-the-food-industry-is-a-fantastic-place-to-work-food-podcasts/">product development managers</a>, covering meat, fish, poultry, vegetables, and frozen foods.<br> <br> </div> <div>That means coming up with ideas for new products from scratch, doing market research, then taking them from the drawing board to the supermarket shelves.<br> <br> </div> <div>It's no mean feat and can take many months, and thousands of man-hours before a product is ready to be sold.<br> <br> </div> <div>April says her career began in the kitchen, where she was a successful chef: "I started working in kitchens when I was 13, just doing pots. And I worked in kitchens the whole time I was a teen.<br> <br> </div> <div>"Then I had my daughter when I was 19, and I continued to work in kitchens, but obviously as a single mum with a baby, it didn't really work out."<br> <br> </div> <div>April decided she needed a 9-5 job and so she decided to go to <a href="https://www.brighton.ac.uk/index.aspx">the University of </a>Brighton and study Food and Culinary Arts.<br> <br> </div> <div>She says, it opened her eyes to the world of a career in food: "There are also so many roles where you can test it out and figure out which part you do like. <br> <br> </div> <div>"You could love food but the bit that really sets you on fire is how you make it safe. Or you could love food but the bit that really sets you on fire is how to make tonnes and tonnes of it."<br> <br> </div> <div>Listen to