Jonathan Pellworth · Chief Operating Officer · United States
Bringing the shift floor into board papers
My contribution to a board
I would bring an operator's view of where a consumer company's commitments turn into physical work. Boards see revenue by channel and margin by category. They see less often the hours, shifts, vehicles and receiving rooms a sales commitment requires, or the injury and turnover patterns that follow when those are stretched. I have spent thirty-one years on that side of the business, in foodservice, dairy delivery and a grocery cooperative, and I know which figures move first when an operation is under strain: overtime, near misses, late departures and returns. I would help a board ask for those measures beside the financial ones and read them together. I also bring experience of a board whose members are its customers, which has taught me to explain an unpopular operating decision to people with a direct stake in the result. My limits are real. I have not served on a for-profit board, my financial knowledge is operational rather than accounting, and my experience is concentrated in groceries and food.
Judgement in practice
01
Reading injury figures and overtime as one record
Before the 2022 freezer decision, our safety reports and our labour reports went to different meetings. Injuries and overtime were both rising in the freezer, and nobody had put the two lines on the same page. As a director I would ask for that combined view wherever a company relies on physical work: injuries, overtime, turnover and output by site and shift. I would not ask management to adopt our cap, because another business's risks will differ. I would ask how management knows its pace is safe, and what it would expect to see before an injury pattern became a claim or an inspection. The operating decision belongs to management; whether the board can see the risk is a question for directors.
02
Keeping safety authority clear of commercial pressure
During the salad withdrawal, a supplier, our merchandisers and several member owners all wanted a narrower response. The decision belonged to our director of food safety and quality, and my role was to support it and own the cost. On a board I would want to know who can stop product or halt work, whether that person can reach the board without passing through commercial management, and whether the company has ever overruled them. I would also ask how recall costs are shared with suppliers before an incident, because that agreement is much harder to reach during one.
03
Asking who pays for a convenience the customer never sees
The delivery-window fee showed me that a service customers value can carry costs they never see. Members asking for five o'clock delivery did not see drivers starting at one or tractors standing idle at noon. Consumer companies face similar questions with same-day delivery, extended opening hours and free returns. I would ask management to show who bears the cost of each such promise and whether a different price or service level has been tested, and to name the customers a change would hurt most.
My first year on a board
My first months would go on learning how the company's commitments reach its workforce. With management's agreement and a clear purpose, I would ask to see a warehouse, a store or a plant during a working shift, and to read a year of safety, turnover and service reports before forming views on any of them. If I joined the audit committee, I would meet the external auditor and the head of internal audit early, because my background is operational and I need to understand how they see the company's controls. In the first budget cycle I would test one or two operating assumptions closely, such as labour hours per unit or delivery cost per stop, rather than commenting on everything. At the end of the year I would ask the chair whether my questions had been useful or merely familiar to me, and change my approach accordingly.
Conflicts and their management
Three relationships need declaring before I consider any seat. The first is my employment. Hollisford buys from hundreds of food and consumer-goods suppliers, and a company that supplies us, or competes with our member stores for the same shoppers, would create a conflict that occasional recusal could not manage; I would decline such seats. The second is the food bank. Pugetvale receives donated product from Hollisford, so a company that also donates to it, or competes with it for warehouse space, would need review. The third is time. Twenty-four days is my estimate, and an incident at a distribution centre or a recall would come first. I would tell a chair that plainly at the outset rather than after missing a meeting. If our chief executive or board judged that a seat conflicted with my obligations to the cooperative, I would not accept it.
My independence statement
Whether I am independent is for the appointing board to determine under the standards that apply to it, including NYSE or Nasdaq listing rules for a listed company. My part is to disclose everything relevant: my executive role at Hollisford, our supplier and member relationships, and my food bank directorship, which receives donated product from the cooperative.
Board and committee exposure
Presented to the Board or a committee
Hollisford Grocers Cooperative
Board, audit committee and operations committee
July 2021–present
Presents safety, food safety, fleet and capital plans; brought the delivery-window fee schedule to the board for approval. Not a director.
Served as a director
Pugetvale Food Bank Network
Board; operations and facilities committee
March 2022–present
Not-for-profit director and member of the committee overseeing warehouse and vehicle investment for partner food banks.