Bakery manufacturer Finsbury Food Group has appointed Neil Rockliff in its newly created senior role of group product and innovation director.
Rockliff joins from almost a decade with Samworth Brothers, most recently as innovation director of the meals category following a little over six years leading the supplier’s NPD for Tesco.
Finsbury said Rockliff joining signals its clear intent to invest further in innovation capability, enhance strategic alignment with customers and ensure product development plays a central role in shaping the group’s future direction, including investment decisions. One of his tasks is to provide a clearer mechanism to identify emerging growth areas.
By aligning innovation strategy with investment planning, Finsbury said it aims to ensure that its manufacturing capabilities evolve in line with future category growth, not simply current demand, building a long-term competitive advantage.
Rockliff brings extensive experience of leading innovation strategies across complex, multi-site, muti-category food businesses, having also held roles at Greencore. His past placements closely mirror Finsbury’s UK and European footprint and diverse product portfolio spanning retail, foodservice, and export channels.
“When I met with the leadership team, it was immediately clear there is real ambition within Finsbury, ambition for quality and ambition for growth,” commented Rockliff. “The diversity of Finsbury’s product and customer mix creates huge opportunities from an innovation perspective. There’s real scope to evolve categories and unlock new areas of growth.”
He will report to Graeme Clark, chief commercial officer, and work closely with Ben Kisby, group category and insight director, to analyse and leverage data and insights to build propositions with consumer wants and needs at its heart.
“When innovation is grounded in insight, commercially viable and compelling enough for consumers to repeat purchase, you’ve hit the sweet spot,” added Rockliff. “Achieving this means investing more time at the front end to answer the ‘so what’ behind every new product.”
Finsbury recently launched a cake bento box – inspired by a South Korean trend that began during the pandemic – under its new retail brand Little Big Cake. It also came out wit a half-and-half cake celebrating the release of the final film in the Wicked franchise.
Among the major business developments from last year were a multi-million-pound investment plan into Finsbury’s dedicated foodservice site in Manchester and its acquisition of a majority stake in Lola’s Cupcakes.
No comments yet