In this month’s Employee Spotlight, we talk to Director and Food Industry Group Manager, Ken Perrins.
How has your career progressed over the years, what was your first important role?
My journey at Redox started a little different to most. I’m fortunate enough to work with a number of other successful family companies, especially in the wine industry. Those family businesses have beautiful romantic stories of the younger generation running around a vineyard or wine barrels. However, for my cousins and I, we grow up with forklifts, warehouses and barrels of caustic soda. Still a lot of fun!
From an early age we were mystified by the chemicals that our Grandfather would bring home from work. He made crystals with copper sulphate and change the colour of copper coins to silver with Sodium Zincate. That curiosity in chemistry developed from a young age and continues to motivate and interest me today.
I started off filing shipping documents during school holidays. Today I have a few responsibilities, one of which is Food Industry Manager, which I have seen grow immensely in the past 25 years. We can now boast that we supply pretty much all of the major food & beverage manufacturers in Australia and New Zealand and are also making great progress in Malaysia and USA.
How has Redox’s food industry presence developed over the years, what are the opportunities you see in the area?
Without question the food industry is evolving rapidly with consumer trends. Consumers are very aware of the foods they eat. Both from a health perspective and an ethical/responsible sourcing perspective.
Reading food labels at a grocery store. Modern customers have a better understanding about the nutritional value they are seeking when selecting products.
With this in mind, Redox has evolved with the changing market and now offer a very different product portfolio than that which was offered when I started 25 years ago.
We see huge potential in this space and continue to look for novel and innovative ingredients to offer our clients.
What are your work mates like?
I can sincerely say that I work with a great bunch of people, in and outside of the food industry. It has been a pleasure to know many of our staff for 20+ years.
Around the water cooler there is always great banter about weekend activities, family, sports as well as the odd bit of business.
I hear you are an avid Scuba diver, what got you interested in that?
Before children I had the time to Scuba dive, but don’t get to much anymore. Now and again, I spearfish, but must say I’m not very good at it. Recently I’ve been on a mission to get my kids off the ‘screens’ and have taken them on a few overnight hikes in the national park.
Bit of a cliché but a really great bonding experience.
Bundeena to Otford Coastal walking track.