James Hutton Limited is delighted to welcome Jake Mac Mahon to the role of Marketing Assistant.  Jake is with us on a six-month secondment from Management Development Services, a graduate scheme designed to develop future leaders of the food and fresh produce industry.

James Hutton Limited joined MDS as a member company a year ago and Jake who joined us at the beginning of October is our third six-month placement and will be with us until April 2021.  Jake is joining the James Hutton Limited team with the remit of working closely with Marketing Manager, Laura, to support marketing and promotion of the business and our services and will have the opportunity to work on various channels over his six month placement. 

Here’s what Jake has to say … 

Hello, my name is Jake Mac Mahon, I am 24 years old and I come from a small village called Carlingford on the east coast of Ireland. I spent four years studying across the pond at Aberystwyth university on the west coast of wales, where I studied modern languages with business and management. Currently I am living in the UK where I am working as a management trainee with MDS Ltd, specialising in the food and fresh produce industry. 

Having grown up with two parents who are chefs, the importance of the provenance of your ingredients and being as self-sufficient as possible was instilled in me from a very young age. I remember being sent out to the garden to pick fresh herbs and fresh vegetables for my parents who were in the middle of a busy dinner service, not only did I learn some colourful language but the process of picking fresh ingredients and seeing them on the plate 10 minutes later fascinated me. This fascination was fuelled by having spent a couple of years in Italy, where we were able to grow so much more with the help of something I had never seen before in Ireland, sunshine! 

I went on to study French and Spanish with business management, this academic background coupled with my vision for sustainable economic development and economising the supply chain made MDS the clear choice for me. The skills I will develop throughout my four placements will give me a fantastic overall view of the supply chain and the difficulties the food and fresh produce industry face. I wish to be able to use the skills I will acquire, to enable some of the poorer countries in the world to grow and produce their own produce to be sustainable. 

My first secondment was with Produce World in a quality assurance role. James Hutton Limited is my second secondment where I am a marketing assistant and I am quickly learning a lot about the various marketing channels we use to engage with our audience. I hope to be able to use some of my language skills to enable James Hutton Limited to reach audiences further afield and increase our engagement.