Kay Bott, SCI's Integrity Director, from farm to factory to food tech and back again

In this episode of the Foresight podcast, host Dom Burch interviews Kay Bott, the Integrity Director at Supply Chain Insights (SCI). Kay shares her extensive background in food technology and quality management, highlighting her diverse experience across various food sectors, including her roles at Lyons Bakery (now Kipling's) and NSF.

Kay discusses her journey to SCI and her current role, which involves overseeing food safety, quality management systems, and accreditation. She emphasises the importance of mentoring and empowering employees, aligning with SCI's flexible and customer-focused approach.

SCI is known for its unique culture, featuring a flat organisational structure that encourages open communication and innovation. Kay highlights the benefits of this environment, stating, "We do have that open conversation. And nobody's wary about making open remarks. And that's fantastic."

The conversation also touches on the role of AI and other technologies in enhancing food safety and quality management. While recognising the benefits of these advancements, Kay stresses the need to balance them with human expertise.

Additionally, Kay explains how SCI's ability to scale and operate globally, drawing on a diverse pool of experts, provides significant advantages for their clients. She mentions, "We have availability of people all around the world...with lots of different expertise. There's nothing we can't do."

Tune in to learn more about Kay's insights on food safety, SCI's innovative culture, and the future of quality management.

Transcript

Dom Burch: 0:06

Welcome back to foresight, the podcast from Supply Chain Insites. My name is Dom Burch. I'm delighted this week to welcome onto the podcast Kay Bott. Now Kay serves as the integrity director at SCI, and brings a wealth of experience and expertise to the team before joining SCI Kay was the Quality Manager at NSF, where she developed a reputation for excellence in excellence, I should say in quality systems and food safety. Kay, listen, I could go on and on and on and on and on and describing it. But why don't I just welcome you to the podcast and you can say hello to the lovely listener. And tell me a bit more about you what what brings you to SCI? How did you What was your journey to where you are now

Kay Bott: 0:44

morning, and hello to our listeners. What brings me to SCI further back then I'd like to remember really or want to remember is I started off as a food technologist. I'd done chemistry and biology and looking for something a bit applied when I went to college and found a course based at an agricultural college that I thought hmm, this is good. It's interesting, it's varied, you're not concentrating on one thing aspect. And I might meet a farmer in the midst of that

Dom Burch: 1:19

sounds like a good plan.

Kay Bott: 1:21

So I went to agricultural college to study food technology, and partly based at an agricultural college and partly based in Bristol up. So got the best of both worlds in that scenario, and but time in agriculture did actually lead to milking cows and feeding calves and driving tractors so and on leaving college, and part of my my college studies was a sandwich course, and looking after a cheese factory at one point in quality management systems. And also for if anybody can remember Spillers or Dal Getty in central quality management systems which covered everything from pet foods to flour. So had a really interesting sandwich placement there. Saw lots of different factors. When I left college, I actually went into product development at what is now Kipling's, but it was at that point, Lyons Bakery, and that was development of branded and own label, ambient cakes and desserts.

Dom Burch: 2:34

So you were part then of making exceedingly good cakes, no less

Kay Bott: 2:38

part of making exceedingly good cake. Wow. And also one of one of the jobs in the development kitchen. At that point was to make Dundee cakes for the Royal Garden Parties, quite varied Swiss rolls, will Garden Parties, wedding cakes for various members of the royal family and things like that was quite interesting, you know, as well as the apple pie and your swiss roll.

Dom Burch: 3:08

Bramley apple pie the nice big chunky bits of Apple, apple motif, did it not on the front of the cake? thing? So here you are now then, right. You know, and we won't talk about the number of years, but here you are now. Right. And you're the integrity director at Sei. So what does all of that background in food safety and quality product development, being hands on on the farm driving the tractors? And you know, it was interesting when I talked to Dave, previously, he runs you know, the agriculture part of SCI, and Sean he runs the sort of the retail and manufacturing side is all that experience that sort of you bring with you in your backpack, so to speak. And then here You are now in this, you know, sort of relatively young organization even as only three years old, but But already operating at the level of a much, much bigger organization. Because the sum you know, you're greater than the sum of the individual parts at SCI, aren't you so tell me a bit about your role and, and what all of that experience that you've got, helps inform how you go about doing what you do today?

Kay Bott: 4:13

Well, my experience going into certification was really about food and food safety and the big food schemes. BRC, IFS, but before that, I'd actually been involved in lots of different types of food including herbs and spices, dressings, jellies, canned coffee, even if anybody can remember those and frozen foods. So I got a what a breadth of food safety. And I went into certification for food. But part of my role in all of that product development area had actually been as well running home economists and sensory evaluation and also been responsible for quality management systems. So once I got to NSA, not only was I looking at food safety and actually making certification decisions, but I then got involved in the accreditation side of quality management systems, and also empowerment of people, and mentoring. And that really is what entices me to a CI is that there's a breadth of knowledge of for our, our people, at Sei, but also, it's really giving people letting people in our employees have a say, and shares and, and the experience and wealth of experience that the team brings together that we can coagulate that into for our customers. So that really is is part of my journey at sei is bringing the expertise to provide the actual practicalities of accreditation quality management systems, internal audits, and then on all of those things, but also the sort of bringing together working with, you know, experts in their field, Rob and Diane, Dave, you know that a customer focus, we've got the flexibility, we've got the perception, and we've got the breadth of knowledge to help our our clients achieve. And that's really what brings me to to Sei along with, you know, the people empowerment. And really the fact that we're not hindered, and we don't have the constraints of, of corporate restrictions, we're flexible, we can move around. And we can bring all that experience together. But you actually, our customers talk to us, not too, very wide team. Yeah,

Dom Burch: 6:51

that's, that's important, isn't it, Dave, of making this point that you really are the people on the end of the telephone, when the customer and the customer is often somebody at quite a senior and important level within that customer organization. And they might be the head of a department or they might be in charge of, you know, managing quality or whatever it is right. And if something, you know, if they've got the reason to pick the phone up and talk to you, it's for good reason, right. And knowing that they've got somebody of your caliber at the other end of the phone, who is actually going to make sure that you respond in the right way. I mean, that must be a huge value add, isn't it compared to when you work in a much bigger organization, it's just impossible, isn't it for you to be the only person that they bring up. I mean, there's call centers, there's forms to fill in, there's all sorts of bureaucracy that are there for, you know, back in the day, often good reason. But without that constraint got out, it must be so freeing for them and you,

Kay Bott: 7:43

it's great for us, it's great for our customers, it's and it's great for our employees, which is something that they experience is that they're responsible for their area, they haven't got constraints from, as I say, from a corporate organization, and it gives everybody them freedom. And it also helps out, as I say, helps our customers makes us customer focused. And the customers know that they're speaking to someone that cares, cares about their business, and what they're trying to achieve, which which is an inspiration, you know, and our leader, Rob Chester is an inspiring person who worked very hard for us. He's very much people person, I think that's what we all aspire to be.

Dom Burch: 8:30

And you really get the impression that everyone's almost like the managing director of their vertical, if you want to call it that's probably not the right. But they're in charge of their business. And therefore they're also empowered, aren't they to innovate and to, you know, try new ideas and get on and do stuff, actually, you know, Rob said to me previously, Peter Bration, would say, you know, get on and do some shit actually get out there and do stuff that's, you know, demonstrably making the world a little bit better in whatever, you know, part of the world that you're, you're doing your thing in.

Kay Bott: 8:59

exactly that. And I think one of the terms that we've used for ourselves is, we're new, but we have a great history. And we are, we are a new organization. But in reality, you've got probably 100 years of experience within food, food safety, and agriculture, and in quality management systems and in certification, and consultancy in everything that we bring. So although we knew we bring all that together, and we all work together, to for our customers, so we all get involved in different parts of our business, and nobody's segregated into just their business. That's the The other great thing about it is that we've got a lot of, you know, sharing of ideas, share and sharing of what we do and how we do things. And

Dom Burch: 9:48

what does uh, you know, what's a typical and it's a not fair question, right? But you know, what's the typical week or a day in the life of an integrity director look like?

Kay Bott: 9:57

can be anything and I think that's partly You know, it goes back to when I was saying, I, I chose food technology because it was a breath of engineering, food safety, bit of chemistry, a bit of physics, bit of biology. And that exactly is is an integrity. You've have your settings, looking at quality management systems, a complaint issue, or an integrity issue that's come in. But it can be lots of other different aspects overlooking both our agriculture side of operations, and our food safety side of operation, which is what I liked, together with sustainability, which we stepped into now. So it covers a wide span of different types of things. And that's, that's what I like, because perhaps I've got a very short attention span.

Dom Burch: 10:52

But that variety is really interesting, isn't it, because you get to apply it gets applied what you know, and how you go about, you know, I was thinking like, I'm sort of like a problem solver. So I love to have different problems, problems and challenges, and then to think creatively about how you overcome them. And I've learned through my career, as I've sort of moved from insurance into legal tech and retail, and you know, compliance and a recipe is actually those skills are really, really valuable. And being able to apply them into a different context each day, just adds a little bit of spice to life. Right, that makes it even more interesting. Yeah,

Kay Bott: 11:25

it is. And, you know, we've got different cultures we work in, we're working across in Thailand, India, and in the UK, and, and on the continent. And so, you know, the those again, the different cultures have different ways of addressing things, different ways of working with people, that just is sort of all part of that variety, and how how people react, and then how you phrase things. So that, you know, with with that, and wealth of experience, it is brilliant that we can we can bring all of that together at SCI, hopefully with a friendly face.

Dom Burch: 12:05

Yeah, absolutely. And as you sort of sit because, you know, you have a different perspective on this, right, you know, as somebody who's an expert in your field, and you know, I'm gonna throw praise at you, Ryan, I know you won't like it, but you're in that 1% Club, right? Where there aren't that many people around the world that have your perspective, your your experience, and also sit in this really interesting organization that's really innovating and going places and kind of tearing up the rulebook a little bit, which in a world of compliance and ticking things must be quite interesting, because you know, Sei is administering rule books, but also rewriting the rules a little bit. What is it that excites you? Or what is it that you can see coming around the corner? Perhaps other people haven't yet got their heads around? Because I would imagine there's quite a lot of risk averse people in the world of managing risk. And yet, actually, one of the exciting things is to take some of those calculated risks and actually going in and oh, this is the way the world is shifting, and we need to be part of that shaping it

Kay Bott: 13:05

There is risk, you know, probably, I would say, I'm the most cautious of our group, purely because I don't want to deal with when when things go wrong, and I'm perhaps the person that always is rule but remember this or have we thought about that. But I think AI is a is you know, it's it's great, it's going to help the world. But we need to remember, it's a computer and perhaps it's not as empathetic with people and the place their act, tables give give you answers, but perhaps not be empathetic to sort of the situation that people find themselves in. So I think I think we need to be guarded against that. But it will be a great tool going forward. And well already is and we're already using it was one of our projects for the society of food technologists and hygiene, I

Dom Burch: 14:01

sort of think of the way that technology comes in these waves is then, you know, I remember when I was when I was at university in 1994. And I remember having to go into the library and try and find newspaper articles about a particular topic. And I remember having to go to a CD ROM machine, which was quite innovative at the time, because you could put a key word in, and one of the only national papers that was syndicating its content into this CD ROM was the independent. So if it was written about in the independent, I was going to find it there versus all of the other newspapers because you were literally thumbing through or looking on a microfilm like going up to one of those machines, which had like, tiny photographs of newspapers, but really, really old fashioned, right. Gosh, can you imagine if I couldn't just go to Google? And I sort of imagined that five years from now we'll look back and go God God. You remember when we didn't have those language based programs like chat GBT on our phones. It's just intuitively a conversationally answering the question and getting to the answer a little bit quicker than it would do to repeat that task as a human. And it's almost impossible at the moment to know what that will go. But we just need to accept, if we look back to the advent of the radio, to the television, to Google to the next thing, things are gonna change,

Kay Bott: 15:21

you're ahead of me, dawn, when I, when I went to college, it was all books, go to the library and find a book seems so archaic, now, it seems unreal, but we've all adapted and adopted these different methods, and there will be new things coming down the path. And we do have to, you know, find, find the good bits and use them. And that is the key with everything as progress is made is find the good bits, but be wary of where it can send you which rabbit hole it can send you down. But perhaps you know, isn't isn't where you want to be.

Dom Burch: 15:58

And you must know this from like, your experience of going into a facility that's making food, right? That there are certain principles that have to be absolutely carved in stone. But the tools that you use, in order to get the output you want, are going to change over time, and you're going to find a better way of doing something that's simpler, faster, cheaper, more reliable, less likely to break down, easier to manage without hurting people. And I think that's a machinery in farming or in heavy industry, right? You know, and all the health and safety stuff that's come in, and just you know, even cars and car seats, and you know, survival rates, and all those kinds of things, but the principles of how to drive carefully, or the principles of how to keep somebody safe if they're preparing food or how not to allow bugs into a system, they have to remain the same, right? But the way that you monitor for those, or the way that you put safeguards in place has got to shift, it's got to adapt,

Kay Bott: 16:56

you're absolutely right and saying about monitoring, but nothing, nothing will replace an actual person walking into a food safety, or food manufacturing facility, and being able to spot the, the issues. But there will be tools and aids to help us and help us continually monitoring of issues or to make sure that people are adhering to standards and requirements. And all of that is is coming out or even there in many ways already. And it will continue to progress. But you know, a person just saying, just looking at things and an expertise looking at things will often pick out sort of, as you say, the baseline things that perhaps are not not quite right, or can be improved or, you know, an occupant to say opportunities for improvements that a human can see. But a machine can monitor and find deviations from. And that's, that's the great thing about AI and computerization and things like that, that, you know, they can, they can show us where to look, rather than have to book all the time. And

Dom Burch: 18:12

one of the other things that's beginning to shift is how organizations like sei remain agile, but also can scale. And you talked already a little bit about work that's happening in India in the Far East, you know, places like China or whatever. And the network of people that era in your little black book that you can kind of assemble, I sort of imagine it like, you know, superheroes assembling, you know, Marvel, or whatever, you know, it's like you can call upon the right blend of experts and expertise and resource to come together. And quite quickly apply itself to whatever challenge comes your way. So somebody picks up the phone and says, right, SEO, I've got this thing over in and yeah, wherever in Thailand, can you assist? And the answer is yes. Like this. That's changing. I mean, that's really different to how things were from an employer's perspective 5 or 10 years ago,

Kay Bott: 19:01

it is it is and we and you're quite right, we have people working in forestry. We have people working in rice fields, we have people working in food manufacturing, and with individual butcher shops. So we've, you know, manager, a wealth of different size of customer, plus their different perspectives and complexities that they've got. And as you say, we do have availability of people all around the world, because we've got lots and lots of contacts in, in all the countries rarely that we can draw on. And with lots of different expertise. There's there's nothing we can't do. And it is it is great to have that challenge and to be able to do it. And as you say scale is important but it's it's that's the key of sei is that we're able to do it. And we've got the we've got not only the ability, but we've got the freedom hmm To do things and to be flexible, and to be agile, all of those things, and we can bring a whole melting pot of expertise for all of our customers. So you don't just get, you know, if a customer talks to us, they don't just get agriculture, they might get a bit of money, they might get a bit of Diane, they might get a bit Dave, a slice of Rob, so to speak, because we bring it all together for what's needed. And

Dom Burch: 20:27

that way of working, it won't be for everybody. It won't be for everybody. And they'll be some people who like the, you know, the old rigid ways and the nine to five and the name badge and the seat at the table and all that good stuff. But there'd be plenty of people listen to this podcast, who I'd imagine belie. Blimey, that's a breath of fresh air. What how would you describe the culture and I always think of like cultures of organizations, when you sort of unpack that word a little bit. It's kind of like how we do stuff around here. And those norms, then over time kind of get codified into sometimes words or whatever, you know, but but, you know, basically, it's like, what's it like around here? How do people behave? How do people treat one another? And what does it feel like to be a part of the SCI team?

Kay Bott: 21:09

I think, I mean, it's difficult for me, because I'm a founder, but I, you know, the, the really the way we work is that everybody, everybody brings something to the party, and everybody's got an expertise that somebody else won't have. So everybody gets to say, everybody say is just as important. And that that's a great thing is that, you know, we do have that open, but open conversation. And nobody's nobody's weary about making open remarks. And that's, that's, you know, fantastic. We've got, as we've said, earlier, we've got a very flat structure. So everybody's responsible, everybody's approachable, everybody's available. And we and we like that. It's a big really about doing our best for our customer with our expertise and our combined expertise. And making sure that we've we've brought all the all the elements, and all the bits that are required.

Dom Burch: 22:10

And Dave said something to me, which I thought was interesting that, you know, you actually genuinely care. And that's not to say, if you work for a big company, you don't care. But you've got a vested interest, because as founders, as you know, as early adopters, or Sei, whatever, right, that it really is your company, and therefore, it's kind of like, I always think of it as like, if you had your butcher shop, it's your name above the door. And that name means something to you and your family and your friends and your reputation. And therefore, you do just have that kind of extra, I don't know, instinctive pneus that extra drive that extra well to, you know, be proud of the place and the things that you do? Yeah,

Kay Bott: 22:48

I mean, we all we all arrived at sei with with our own, and, as you say, our own little black books of contacts, our own sort of reputations of how we'd worked and who would work with. And what we've done is combine that into the something that we all work together, and we all want to strive for sei to achieve. And that's what we instill in our employees and our contractors is that, you know, if you've got something to say, please say it. Don't get frightened by any consequence because there is no consequence. We all just want to, to do to do our best and be better and enjoy working together and respect each other's individuality whilst combining the best of each other. I think, you know, sci fi, and similar businesses are the way forward for people you know, we just were dressed we dress our customers with we want our customers to achieve alongside

Dom Burch: 23:55

is brilliant. Well listen, Kay bot integrity director at supply chain insights, absolute pleasure, catching up with you on the foresight podcast. Thank you so much for your time. I'm sure you've got a busy and hectic day. I look forward to seeing you in a couple of weeks time in the real world

Kay Bott: 24:10

Oh, yeah. Look forward to meeting you down.

Dom Burch: 24:12

All right, for the time being. Thanks so much. You've been listening to the foresight podcast from supply chain insights. If you're interested in being a guest, please get in touch. You can find us. There's a contact form on our website or you can search for us on LinkedIn.