The new chair of the Isle of Man Meat Plant says the revamped board wants to 'reinstate a sense of pride' in Manx meat.
Damien Corcoran's appointment was announced as a part of a shake-up by the Department of Environment Food and Agriculture.
Siobhán Fletcher sat down with him after the appointment was announced, to find out what he's planning on doing to turn the facility around.
Hi, it's Siobhan, one of the journalists up at Manx Radio, and welcome to the latest edition of our newscast. If you could just introduce yourself for me first of all. Certainly, my name is Damien Corcoran, and I'm the newly appointed chair of the Isle of Man Meat Company. Perfect. And so, yeah, we had this announcement yesterday. Most of the board directors has changed around. Who's coming to the fold then? Well, we've been able to appoint a team of experts, and one of the formative members is Dr Jonathan Burney, who wrote the Burney Report from two years ago, along with Philip Burney, who was also part of writing that report. And we have Rob Tear as well, who brings local knowledge and very much the butcher's perspective. And we've also got Andrew McKeon as well, who is a farmer and a hollyer on the island who's got a good working knowledge of the meat plant. And you're coming in as the new chair of the board. What's your background then? So, I'm from the Isle of Man. Born, raised, educated here, and then left the island to join the army. So, I've got a background in professional leadership. After I left the army, I started working in food retail, and that's the element that's most relevant to chairing the board at the Isle of Man Meat Company. So, I work for large retailers such as Aldi and Sainsbury's, and more recently Whole Foods Market, Amazon. And that's really given me a great understanding, not only of the complexity of food retail, but also just lodging, leading. Sorry, I'll start that one again. It's given me the experience of leading large teams and taking those teams through complex change processes. So, I think all of those things equipped me well to chair the board. And complex change processes, I mean, it's no secret that the meat plants had some struggles in recent months and recent years. We've had some shakeups there, you know, in the last couple of years, it's been very much at the fore, and it's been a big point of conversation. We hear here that the board's been focused on governance of the company over the past year, technical maintenance and operational policies and procedures. So, what's the new board going to bring that furthers any of that that's already been happening? So, I'm aware of the recent and historic media coverage. I'd say that I'm really here to look forward rather than looking back. And in doing so, my intention in the coming days and weeks is to engage with our stakeholders, so to talk with our farmers, our butchers, our retailers and all of the team that work within the ABTOR itself. For me, I'm very much in listening mode at the moment before we decide exactly what course of action it is that we're going to take. And that listening is that, you know, the people within the meat plant and also our farmers and the producers, the various people who rely on the meat plant. Absolutely. Everybody. I think the meat plant itself is at the centre of a number of different industries on the island. And my intention is to listen to all of the stakeholders that have a part to play in producing meat on the Isle of Man. Do you think there needs to be a concentrated effort from government to put a decent amount of money into the meat plant to actually turn it around? Is that something you're looking at? Like, you need a lot more investment, maybe? I'd say at this stage it's too early for me to draw a conclusion. I need to look at the data. I need to look at the processes and procedures that are in place. And then after a certain period of time as a lapse, then we'll be able to form an actionable plan forward. I mean, from the public point of view, it seems like there's been a lot of looking at processes and see how it's going to change. In real terms, when are we going to actually see change at the meat plant? It would be too early for me to put a timeline on that. I would say that as soon as I've had the opportunity with my new board to look at the details, look at how things are factually at the moment, then we'll be able to devise a timeline and look at resource and support that's required to get the meat plant where it needs to get to. And so in terms of looking at all that different data and things, is there a point that you want to look at first? Is it like for you coming into it with your past experiences? They're like, right, I want to tackle this first and foremost. Is there anything that's jumped out? The first thing for me is engagement with people. So we have a number of stakeholders and they're all vitally important on the island. And I just want to find out what their take is on things. I'm also really confident that with the board that we have in place now that we'll be able to deeply understand the nature of the challenges and come back with a comprehensive plan that we can implement over time to really improve the quality of the service that the app tool provides to the island. And do you think that that change is going to come quick enough for the farmers who are already quite critical of the meat plant? I mean, we have some producers who already ship their stock across because it's easier to send it there to be dealt with. It still marks produce, but it's not being, you know, the final end part isn't being done here. Do you think that this change will come quick enough for them? My experience food ecosystems are extraordinarily complex. And when you start looking into the component parts, there are typically areas where you can make relatively rapid changes. But because of the nature of the product that we're dealing with, it will just take time. There will be an evolution of how we can run and operate the plant. But we can only do that with stakeholder engagement end to end from field to fork. And I guess I suppose finally you've had it a bit with me here. Are you ready for the criticism that you're going to get in this role? I think this is, it's a bit of a poison chalice maybe to be going into maybe that might be a bit of an extreme view on it, but it's going to be a difficult job. I think that the important challenges normally are quite difficult. And I've got experience of turning businesses around in the past and working with a multitude of different stakeholders. I think that one thing that unifies us is that the people of the Isle of Man do understand the importance of our own meat. They understand the importance of agriculture on the island. And they also understand how they should have a level of pride in the product that's produced on Ireland. And my intent and that of the board is to reinstall that sense of pride in the products from the Isle of Man. Thank you for making it to the end of the Manx Radio newscast. You are obviously someone with exquisite taste. May I politely suggest you might want to subscribe to this and a wide range of Manx Radio podcasts at your favourite podcast provider, so our best bits will magically appear on your smartphone. Thank you. [Music] You
