Five Minute Focus On: Andrew McCracken – Foods Connect

About Foods Connected

Originally founded in 2012 the Company’s business model provided online software tools for companies trading within the meat industry. With growing demand, the company branched out into new areas of business within the whole of the food industry. Foods Connected has over 50 employees across 3 different offices; Derry/Londonderry, Belfast and Sydney Australia with the team growing constantly.

Foods Connected develops software tools for use in the food industry which are intuitive, accessible and easy to use. The core part of the system are software tools to help manage key processes including:

Buying & Selling
Supplier Approval
Risk Assessment
Factory Audits
Specification Management
Product Quality Checking

The food industry can be complicated and the software tools the Company developed streamline processes and continuously improve day to day activities of food industry professionals.

What your role in the Company

As the Finance and People Director for Foods Connected I have worked with the company for almost 5 years. I look after the general finances of the company and put employee welfare at the forefront of our company.

What’s next for Foods Connected

Continuing to grow and expand into new markets. The company has a well established foothold across the UK and Europe, as well as Australia but want to start moving into North America and the Asian markets. We also will continue to innovate new tools that can be used within the Food Industry, such as Block Chain technology for food traceability.

Tell us something about Foods Connected we might not know?

Foods Connected was originally called Meat Connected as we focused primarily on the meat sector. In 2016 we changed names to Foods Connected as we began to work with more and more non meat companies.

What’s your favourite thing about working in Belfast

The depth and variety of companies that have started working in Belfast has been great to see and events and locations such as the Glandore Office which bring us all together is a fantastic way to network and grow your own business.

What do you like about being a Glandore member?

We are relatively new to the building and unfortunately our time there has corresponded with the COVID pandemic. This has meant we have not had the opportunity to network and get to know our fellow members as much as we would have wanted. That being said, the Glandore Team have made us feel very welcome and helped with every request we have had.

Friday night in or Friday nights out?

Having had my first child in June of the year, nights out are hard to come by. But seeing as they are cancelled due to the pandemic, I am not missing out on too much!

To find out more about Foods Connect visit their website here to learn more about what they do.