Overview:
We are looking for a Public Affairs Manager to assist the business in broadening relationships with key civil servants, politicians and policy makers to raise our profile and reputation as well as influence government policy to ensure positive recommendations for apetito.
apetito aim to be one of the UK’s leading companies in ethics and sustainability and have made considerable progress in sustainability over the past few years and have won multiple awards, including the Kings Awards for Enterprise - Sustainable Development in 2024. We have one of the strongest Net Zero commitments of any business in the UK, with targets independently validated by the SBTi. We have also introduced a world-first via our closed-loop packaging recycling system for CPET ready meals trays. We have recycled over 35m of these trays to date and have successfully influenced Government to make changes to packaging legislation to now recognise ours and other closed-loop systems.
Our food and nutrition challenges are not typical to the rest of the food industry, who are generally focused on the obesity challenge. Many of our customers are at risk of malnutrition, posing different policy asks, and we are heavily focused on “eating for health” delivering appropriate nutrition solutions to all.
In recent years we have successfully influenced policy in the following areas:

Civil Servants

• Defra – Food Policy and Procurement
• Dept Health – Food and nutrition standards across our market sectors
• Dept Energy Security & Net Zero – Climate and Net Zero

MP’s – Westminster

• Members of Parliament and House of Lords
• Relevant Parliamentary Committees

MP’s – Nationwide

• Through our network of 50+ WFF depots across the UK build relationships with MP’s from their constituency base with regular visits to influence policy issues

Policy and campaigns

• Develop and deliver an annual public affairs strategy to engage with political stakeholders on key policies and issues

Political Intelligence

• To keep abreast of political and policy developments affecting the sectors in which we operate, identifying opportunities to promote apetito policy asks through active political and parliamentary monitoring

Key Policy Focus areas

• Defra Food Strategy/Local Food/GBS
• Ultra-Processed Foods
• NHS 10 Year Health Plan/Obesity Strategy
• Electrification for Food Manufacturing sector - Industrial Strategy
• Packaging EPR legislation
• Eco-labelling
• Frozen Food temperatures – Move to -15 Coalition

About you: