Salads strategist

摘要

Just before Christmas, the British Leafy Salads Association (BLSA) pulled off a major coup by winning EU money to promote salads to consumers. The money is intended to help counter the damage caused by the E. coli outbreak last year. Heading up the bid was John Allan. In addition to being chairman of the BLSA, he is a leading spinach grower and a dynamic lobbyist for the industry. Allan has been working in the industry since leaving agricultural college 27 years ago. "Originally Iwanted to go into arable farming, but I was offered a job with salads and I enjoyed it," he says. He lives in Nottinghamshire, where he is a director of Emmett, which grows almost 250ha of spinach leaves. "We sell bagged spinach. I spend most of my day field-walking, doingagronomy and running our staff— at peak season we have around 30 employees." In addition, he does a lot of work for the BLSA— chairing meetings, pooling research, organising campaigns and representing the industry to the Government and the Horticultural Development Company. "I have been on the BLSA's research and development committee for the past 15 years, so three years ago I felt I was ready to do a stint as chairman," he says.