Mark O'Shea

During my 6 month fixed-term contract, my resposibilities covered all chilled savoury pastry and olive and anitipasti new product development for Marks & Spencer, an account worth over £90 million annually.

• Worked closely with management in setting budgets and controlling costs.
• Collaborated with marketing team for successful product launches.
• Kept abreast of industry changes to stay competitive in the market.

I left role to look after my family as my wife was suffering from serious illness.

During this time I worked as a chef for local agencies to allow me the necessary work-life balance whilst to find the right opportunity to continue my career in new product development.

• Responsible for all innovation, NPD and EPD on Tesco chilled ready meals, meal centres and sides.
• Close collaboration with Insights and Commercial teams to ensure commercially viable products ahead of the latest customer needs.
• Presentation of all concepts to customer at every milestone in Tesco's stage gate process.
• Creation and maintenance of all recipes using Recipe Professor software.
• Support Process team during trial and launch process.
• Two direct reports

• Front End Innovation is a small and agile team, linking insights, technology and food craft with to deliver best-in-class plant-based products.
• Co-developer of Richmond meat-free range, delivering £35.4 million in retail sales during Q1 and Q2 2022.
• Creation of innovation pipeline for next 3-5 years in conjunction with Marketing team, through use of data and insights provided by proprietary AI software, external partners and own research.
• Training and support of other regional teams in order to grow global customer base (EU, NA and APMEA), including value proposition creation, customer presentations and on-site support.
• Listed as Inventor on 2 pending plant-based product patents.
• Co-lead of European RD&A Recognition Team, whose aim is to promote a culture of recognition within the business.
• 1 direct report.

• Following my redundancy due to factory closure, I decided to spend the summer holidays looking after the children, working only on a temporary basis.

• Responsible for blue-sky innovation, NPD and EPD of M&S Balanced For You and Count On Us ranges, launching 2 top 5 lines in 2019.
• Presentation of all concepts to cusotmer at stage gates.
• Instrumental in launch of Plant Kitchen, first plant-based own-label UK supermarket brand.
• Worked closely with procurement, technical, and process departments to ensure viability of new products and adherence to M&S strict ingredient policy.

• Promoted healthy living via a plant-based, whole food, pre & probiotic diet.
• Development, costing and execution of weekly changing, vegan, gluten and refined sugar-free food and drinks menus.
• Responisble for all HACCP, nutritional and allergen information.

My career as a chef has covered everything from AA Rosette gastropubs to 2 MIchelin Star restaurants, as well as private chef roles across Europe. Full history available on my LinkedIn profile.