My Bakery Job: Nick Bevan, director, corporate comms & sustainability, Baker & Baker

In this series, British Baker talks to people from across the baking industry to find out about their career path, what their job involves, and the latest trends that are shaping their work.

We’re looking to showcase a diverse range of talent and job types across the industry, so if you’d like to be involved, please email dan.riley@wrbm.com.

Name: Nicholas Bevan

Age: 41

Job title: Director, corporate communications & sustainability

Company and location: Baker & Baker, Bromborough, Wirral

Education: BA, Politics & Parliamentary Studies, University of Leeds

Tell us about your career to date:

After graduating from university, I actually started my career in a commercial role for a professional football club – but it wasn’t a long-term fit. I spent more than a decade in consultancy roles spanning corporate communications and public affairs, working for different clients across different sectors, which helped me work out exactly what industry I’d prefer to work in.

I also had the opportunity to work on corporate communications campaigns that intersected with environmental, social, governance (ESG) issues, and that’s when I decided to pursue a career focused around sustainability. I joined Baker & Baker in 2021, and I’ve been in the role for more than five years now.

How would you describe your job, and what kind of tasks and responsibilities does it involve?

My role is very much split in two, so a fair degree of juggling is required! For starters, I’m responsible for overseeing and delivering our corporate communications both externally and internally. This includes managing our relationships with media, trade associations, and other stakeholders.

The majority of my time is spent overseeing our ESG strategy and commitments. We have a small team internally, but we also rely on functional colleagues and external partners to deliver our strategy.

As well as initiatives to improve our sustainability footprint, compliance with a range of national and EU-level regulations – such as the EU Deforestation Regulation and the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive – and responding to customer requirements and requests also form a big part of my role.

It’s been interesting to see how other enterprise businesses such as Nestlé have begun to combine their corporate communications and ESG functions, as there are clear synergies between the two.

Tell us about a challenge you have overcome recently:

Some of the biggest challenges we face are adapting existing recipes or materials to make them more sustainable or to respond to new customer requirements. We recently completed a project to replace one of our muffin trays used in Europe with a more sustainable alternative that could be demonstrated across several metrics.

Such a project involves extensive collaboration with different colleagues, as we needed to prove the sustainability credentials were accurate, and the new trays needed to perform well in production trials and meet customer expectations.

What have been some highlights of your career?

There have been so many highlights since joining Baker & Baker. My arrival coincided with the creation of the business, following the sale of our ingredients division. This gave me a blank canvas to work from, in terms of the development of our first ESG strategy, our first set of ESG targets and the delivery of many different sustainability initiatives.

For me, a big milestone moment was the approval of our near-term and net zero targets by the Science Based Targets initiative, as it demonstrated our commitment to reducing emissions and a huge amount of work went in behind the scenes in developing those targets.

In previous consultancy roles, I’ve also been fortunate enough to work for some of the largest global brands and collaborate across different countries and continents. This provided me with real insight into how different multinational companies operate, and approaches that I’ve been able to implement at Baker & Baker.

What is a common misconception about your role?

There is a perception – not just in bakery, but across many industries – that sustainability is solely focused on environmental issues. Although climate and other environmental topics remain at the forefront of our ESG strategy, social and human rights issues are just as critical for us, our customers and the end consumer.

Alongside colleagues from procurement and our factories, effectively managing human rights issues in our value chain and within our own operations are two key facets of our ESG approach, and require just as much focus and delivery as environmental topics.

What advice would you give to bakery businesses looking to improve their sustainability credentials?

Businesses must have a clear understanding of what they wish to achieve and then develop a strategy and targets that fit with this vision.

Sustainability is also a journey and it’s difficult to implement sweeping changes overnight. Bakery manufacturers should be realistic on what they can achieve and focus on a few areas where they can make a tangible impact.

In addition, there are a wealth of industry resources available to businesses that want to take the next step in improving their sustainability footprint. Both the Food & Drink Federation and the Federation of Bakers are deeply involved in these issues and operate forums where businesses can discuss challenges and ideas in a non-commercial and non-competitive space.”

Interested in a career in bakery? Check out Foodmanjobs for the latest vacancies