Product Developer Daniel McDowell of Marks and Spencer, London
Liz Tarpy

Roman-Style Hunter’s Lamb? Char-Grilled Chicken Linguini with Salsa Verde? These dishes are not on the menu of a fancy restaurant. They are among the many delectable selections of ready-made food available at Britain’s most famous retailer, Marks and Spencer. Meet the Product Developer whose job it is to create these appetizing meals. It isn’t as easy as you would think, but it sure sounds fun.

StarChefs: What drew you to work for Marks and Spencer?

Daniel McDowell: Marks and Spencer is the most famous retailer in the UK. It is affectionately known as Marks and Sparks. In my mind, they have always been associated with the best quality meals in the market. I always thought if I developed food for a retailer, it would be them. I suppose otherwise I would have remained a chef. It was, in my mind, a way to bring my food concepts to a larger audience. At the time I joined, we also sold our food throughout Europe.

SC: How would you describe the company culture?

DM: There is great pride in working for Marks and Spencer. You feel the history of the company and the strong sense of values held by the founders. It is a mixture of creative, commercial, and strategic minds. The atmosphere is relaxed but with a serious air, as this is a multi-pound business. We are always told quality is the most important thing.

SC: Have you always been interested in this area of work? How did you prepare for it?

DM: I have always been interested in creating food but probably never envisaged doing it in such a large-scale way. I now manage more than 140 fresh prepared meal lines at Marks and Spencer for 350 stores in the UK. It’s very different than running six restaurants. You have to be a good project manager, as well as knowledgeable in raw ingredients and food preparation, and adept at packaging and marketing. Flexibility is the key. My chefing background prepared me for the food development and people management, but not for the packaging and marketing. I believe the job teaches you to look deep into customer satisfaction – it is not about being a renegade chef. I suppose it has forced me to grow up.

SC: What kind of training or education is required?

DM: I suppose there are a few chefs like myself doing the job, but others come from marketing or packaging backgrounds. Chilled meals I find very challenging because you are trying to create restaurant quality dishes that will eat well for almost a week or more. Restaurant food is so “à la minute.” We need to give that excitement for over a week of the customer’s life and not disappoint.

I have a four-year degree in Spanish and Italian from Bowdoin College [in Maine]. This has helped in my [meal line] areas such as Italian, Pizza, and American as I travel to Italy and the Americas reasonably often for work. I also did a year cooking course in London and then worked as a Head Chef and Executive Chef for 15 years.

SC: What particular skills, talents, or personality traits are helpful in your job?

DM: Multi-tasking is very important for the different elements of the job. Equally, one has to be able to prioritize one’s time, as many different aspects of the job pull you in different directions. We often taste 30 or more dishes a day, so it is necessary to have a good palate and be able to remember tastes from previous dishes so as to be able to attain our high quality standards. One has to taste the flavors, as well as texture, consistency, and aftertaste. We are trained in sensory perception, in addition to business skills. Patience is definitely a key skill, as well as being level-headed and uncompromising in quality.

SC: What is a typical day like?

DM: Each day is quite different. It may involve a trip to a supplier in Scotland, catching the 7am plane to Edinburgh, traveling across the breadth of Scotland to a factory, doing a factory trial of a new product, tasting 30 variations of a recipe, and returning on a 6pm flight the same day. Other days, samples come to me and we examine every aspect of the products on our shelves, from texture to flavor to appearance. Yet other days involve traveling to Italy to investigate a new range of pizzas with our consultant in Italy. We eat 30 pizzas a day (just a few bites) and decide on the best qualities for our customer. We then write a comprehensive brief to our suppliers. We decide whom to brief. They show us concepts, and we work with them to attain the quality. Then we move the recipe to the factory where it is scaled up to huge proportions. This is the crucial time where we must be strong enough to change [the product] or not. It is an expensive process and can be disastrous if it goes wrong.

SC: What is the most satisfying part of your job? The most difficult?

DM: The most exiting part of the job is definitely changing the tastes of the country. I have had some success in moving people to think beyond lasagna and spaghetti Bolognese to regional Italian cuisine, like Neapolitan Shrimp Bucatini or Sorrento lemon chicken made with lemons from Sorrento, Italy. It is satisfying to move people into these new territories. I even sourced my own lemons from Sorrento and arranged their transport to the UK. No one understood why these were so important, but I felt they symbolized the sunniness and warmth of Italian food. They were also grown in the organic volcanic soil of Sorrento near Mount Vesuvius and tasted delicious.

The most difficult thing has been launching a wonderful product and, for some unknown reason, the customer doesn’t buy it. There is no way to tell what will be the best-selling line. As a chef in the restaurant, I was used to the customer coming to me for my food, but as a developer I am the person behind the scenes. It can be much more anonymous.

SC: What are the opportunities for advancement in this field?

DM: I suppose they are very good as there are two tiers above me, one being in charge of a category of Developers, and the Head of Development. There are also chances to enter other non-food related areas of development. Our company encourages constant education and training in management skills so other opportunities often arise. The UK seems to be a leader in “Ready Meals” and therefore it is more difficult to find the same position outside of this country. Even America does not quite have the same level of food development within a huge retailer. We own King’s Supermarkets on the east coast and often have an exchange of ideas with their people. Marks and Spencer’s tries to set trends, as opposed to following them.

SC: What advice would you give someone wanting to enter this field?

DM: I was very lucky to have been selected for one of the two jobs from thousands of applicants. We have only hired 3 new people in development over the past three years, so it is necessary to have a wide selection of skills and experiences to stand out. I had traveled extensively and worked in Italy, America, Holland and the UK. I had experience cooking many different cuisines. I suppose confidence is very important and an ability to be adaptable. I found an office environment to be very challenging, as I was used to the quick pace of the kitchen where decisions would be made rapidly. Now I find decisions have to go through many people and can seem to take a very long time. But then the stakes are much higher in a multi-pound business.