Meet the Wynnstay Eastern Seed Team

Having no agricultural background, I joined the industry in the late seventies working for Kenneth Wilson. I started in a junior admin role progressing through various departments and learning about the company's products & services.

After a few months, a vacancy came up for a trainee sales representative working from one of the company's many area offices. This was the start of a lifelong career working in sales, initially as an agronomist. In the late eighties, I joined the sales management team, working with sales staff throughout Yorkshire. In the early nineties, the Kenneth Wilson Business was acquired by Dalgety Agriculture, and my role in sales management continued with the new responsibility of working in seed.

In 2003, Dalgety Agriculture collapsed from its position as the premier Arable & Feed merchanting business across the UK, resulting in parts of the business being sold.

The Agronomy & Fertiliser businesses were sold to Mastock Arable, (better known as Agrii today) part of the Origin group, at which point I along with most of the Yorkshire Arable Sales team decided to join Grainfarmers. I continued working in sales & seed management, working with the northern & midland sales teams.

In 2008 Openfield was born, a merger between Grainfarmers & Centaur Grain, I spent 10 very happy years in Openfield before deciding to join Nidera as the Northern Commercial manager.

In 2017 I joined Wynnstay, working from the Woodheads seed office in a Commercial Manager role, helping to promote & develop the business in the East.

Today I help to look after the seed business, following the sad loss of a colleague, as well as continuing my sales management responsibilities.  I really enjoy my work in Wynnstay, working with salespeople and being involved in all areas of the Arable business in the East, especially my lifelong interest in seed.

 After completing an Administration and Business course at Selby College, I Joined Woodheads Seeds Ltd I (a Wynnstay acquisition) in August 1995 as a Cereal and Grass Seed Administrator. As part of a small team, I was solely responsible for all aspects of seed orders, invoicing, to supporting the processing department. After temporarily leaving the company in 2001 to work as an Overseas Administrator & Airport Manager, I returned to the business in 2006.

In 2010 I took on more of a financial role in the Company, helping to prepare Management accounts, bank reconciliation and payments, alongside the Seed Administrator duties,
Now, as the Customer Service Support Manager, I am responsible for the whole Cereal administration activity for the East Division, supporting the sales and production team and managing customer enquiries and sales.

I previously worked as a Customer Service and Logistics Lead at Frontier Agriculture.  During my time at Frontier Agriculture, I demonstrated high levels of customer service and covered a range of fertiliser administration duties, proving my excellent organisation and communication skills. I worked closely with the fertiliser team to ensure efficient planning and execution of the business in order to meet customer and supplier requirements.

I have now worked for Wynnstay for 10 months, my time so far is taken up day to day with, liaising and negotiating with hauliers to agree on the best price for seed distribution building the most cost-effective loads and distributing haulage work.  I have also implemented new ways of storing information and have helped initiate new procedures within the office. Day to Day office procedures, entering orders, allocating invoices.

I enjoy collaborating with my colleagues and working together as a team to achieve our goals. The management is also very flexible and understanding and offers plenty of opportunity for development and progression.

I have found the change from working with fertiliser to seed is very different and enjoy the different aspects and learning new things.

After completing an Extended Diploma in Business Management, I then travelled to New Zealand where I worked on several Sheep, Beef and Arable farms for 2 years in total. Upon my return, I worked in the meat industry for Woodhead Bros. as a management trainee, working in the farm-to-fork supply chain. Alongside this, together with my husband, we have set up a sheep and beef enterprise, focusing on forage-based performance, to reduce input costs and maximise output which we continue to pursue and improve.

In September 2022 I joined Wynnstay’s Eastern Region team as a Farm Trader, I enjoy working alongside farmers to provide support in finding the correct products for their business and purchasing grain within Yorkshire and the surrounding areas. Having most recently taken on the responsibility for the Small Seeds department, this is an exciting opportunity I look forward to providing product knowledge to farmers in an industry I am so passionate about.