Currently based in our Ballyragget site, but moving to Abbey Quarter later this year, Will joined GI in 2020 as the Glanbia Performance System (GPS) Manager. He started his career with Accenture and subsequently worked as a Director and Head of Operational Excellence Consulting with Grant Thornton. Having joined GI in the middle of the pandemic, Will has predominantly been working online and is really looking forward to physically meeting a lot of his colleagues over the coming weeks and months. He was keen to join Glanbia Ireland as his passion for ‘Continuous Improvement’ aligned with GI’s values of ‘Performance Matters’ and ‘Winning Together’.

In his spare time Will and his partner Eoin are renovating an old house while also taking care of their dogs, cats, donkeys, sheep and hens!

Will explains that “No one day is typical in my role, which adds great interest and variety. I enjoy connecting with my colleagues in the GPS and wider Excellence team to deliver on our improvement agenda. A significant amount of my time is spent supporting both 3M and COVI, which as a GI community, we should be exceptionally proud of. These initiatives are great examples of Continuous Improvement (CI) in action.

“3M is all about bringing strategy to life, ensuring that in both ‘running today’ and ‘developing tomorrow’, teams are realising their strategic objectives and that successful 3M deployment will result in improved results, building greater awareness of how each individual and each team can play their part in the execution of GI’s strategy.

“My favourite part of the role is seeing people across the business mature when it comes to CI. To see them coming out of our GPS Academy with stronger CI skills and putting them into real life practice is what gets me out of bed in the morning! For me, the Academy is the bedrock of continuous improvement. It’s very hard to fully execute CI unless you fully understand the process of what you’re doing and why you’re doing it.”

Looking to the future, Will and his team are constantly innovating to ‘Find a Better way’ of challenging every corner of the business in their Continuous Improvement journey. “Having got initiatives such as COVI and 3M to a mature stage, we now must continue to challenge teams to further ‘develop tomorrow’ and align their projects to their goals and the overall values at GI.”

GI China colleagues are celebrating the New Year in style

Our colleagues at GI China are in the midst of Lunar New Year celebrations and looking forward to the annual Lantern Festival next Tuesday. Chinese New Year officially started on February 1st, with seven days of public holidays over the traditional 16-day celebration. This period marks the transition of the zodiac sign from the Ox in 2021 to the Tiger this year.

Tigers are the third animal of the Chinese zodiac and it is said people born in this year are ambitious, daring and courageous, enthusiastic and generous, self-confident with a sense of justice and a commitment to helping others for the greater good.

Some of our colleagues from the Shanghai office shared details of how they celebrate this very special holiday.

Al Chen
Business Development Manager, China, GI

Above all, Lunar New Year represents family for me. Across China, close family get together and during normal times before Covid, many people travel long distances to celebrate Chinese New Year. On New Year’s Eve, we will cook a big meal for all the family to share and the children will receive “hongbao” (a red envelop with cash inside) with blessings from the elders in the family. With most people being on holiday at this time, relatives and friends will visit each other’s homes for the next 10 days, giving New Year’s blessings.

Haley Zhang
Marketing Assistant, China, GI
Preparations begin a few days before Chinese New Year. On the 24th day of the 12th lunar month, the house will be cleaned and decorated. Next, we will do some food and gift shopping for the CNY. On New Year’s Eve, I and the other adults give red envelopes to the youngest children to bless them. My whole family has dinner together while watching the Spring Festival Gala. On the first day of the Lunar New Year, I will stick couplets and “Fu” marks together with my grandfather and my cousin. Under normal circumstances, we would receive guests who come to pay New Year’s greetings, but because of Covid-19, people will not come as usual. We will only enjoy the company of our family at home.

Some of the Chinese delicacies pictured above include grilled oysters with garlic, braised pork ribs, braised prawns in lantern shape, steamed sea bass, steamed lobster, stewed pork bone, braised Dongpo pork hock with brown sauce, beef in sauce, fried vegetable meatballs, red bean rice cake, vermicelli salad, stir-fried vegetables.

Amanda Cao
Ecommerce Assistant Manager (Tmall), China, GI
On the Eve of New Year’s, we cook a big dinner together and wait for the New Year bell at midnight. Then we cook some dumplings which have a lot of meaning in Chinese culture – fresh dumplings symbolise the beginning of a new year. Dumplings are shaped like a yuan treasure which was used as currency in imperial China, so they are also a symbol of prosperity.

This is a papercut of the tiger Zodiac. Some Chinese families will cut some red paper-cut paintings and stick them on their windows (called window flowers) to set off the festive atmosphere during the Spring Festival. At present, many northern families still maintain this tradition.

These are ‘Si xi’ (four happiness) steamed dumplings made during the Spring Festival last year. Four happiness means four major events – happiness, wealth, longevity and happiness. Taking this name will also get a good start for the next year.

The dumpling skin is dyed with vegetable juice of four colours and filled with four vegetables which are also distinguished by four colours. Then the shape of dumplings is also made into a shape with four pockets, which adds a new meaning to the traditional dumplings through three aspects of transformation.

Norma is pictured with Lab Technician Doireann Harding in front of the new TGA instrument in Ballyragget

Each month, we put the spotlight on a Glanbia Ireland employee and for our January newsletter, we spoke to Norma Moore, Quality Control Manager in the Chemistry Lab at GI’s Ballyragget processing facility.

Norma joined Glanbia Ireland as Head of Quality for the Ballitore site in January 2020 after previously working in both Supply Chain and Quality for Diageo and BC Manufacturing in Kilkenny and Dublin since graduating from college. Joining the company just as the pandemic struck was a challenge at first, but the Ballitore Quality team ‘Found a Better Way’ to ensure they could carry out their tasks while keeping colleagues safe while on site. Having dealt with Glanbia Ireland’s unique products and teams in previous roles Norma was “always keen to join the company” due to the ‘Winning Together’ and ‘Showing Respect’ culture within the company.

In January 2021 Norma moved to the Ballyragget site, taking on the Quality Control Manager role for the Chemistry Lab. “2021 has been an extremely interesting year overall for me, with the Ballyragget site processing record volumes of milk and finished product this year, all of which requires testing, grading, release and the approval of new customers & specifications”, Norma told Overheard. One of the highlights of the year for Norma was working on the delivery of Project Rome and, “collaborating with other sites and departments ensures the job is both exciting and continually changing”.

“What excites me about my role is that it is everchanging! In a typical day, I pop down to the lab to meet the team first thing in the morning. After that we have our Quality calls at 9am each day to assess the current state of play in the lab and following the meeting myself and the team address any issues that are presenting themselves.” In many ways the Quality team ensures Glanbia Ireland products live up to our value of ‘The Customers Champion’. “The bar is always rising with our customers in terms of their product requirements, specifications and GMP expectations and the laboratory has a key role in meeting the contracted volumes to customers including Bel, LactoJapan, Diageo, Russia.”

The month of June is the Quality teams busiest time of year with milk intake at its peak, with this Norma credits her team of 14 who are “the single most important resource within the laboratory. They are highly skilled and work hard to ensure all testing is completed on time in full.” Outside of their prescripted roles the team are “extremely supportive of each other and ensure any new team member feels welcome and part of the team. The support for me from the team on joining Glanbia, Ballyragget this year made my transition so much easier.”

Examples of the tests that are carried out in the chemistry lab are Particle size, Hydration, pH, Sediment, Moisture, Fat, Salt, Ash, Protein, PV, FFA, Nitrates by both rapid and reference methods. New equipment is part of the ongoing improvements in the laboratory and the team continuously engage to deliver!