For more than 40 years, Mark has worked across many areas at Bedford – from spray painting to woodwork. These days he brings his skills and friendly smile to the 670 strong packaging team in Panorama as we embark on a one of the biggest contracts in Bedford’s 75 year history.
“Everyone’s talking about chips at the moment because of our new deal with Smith’s snack foods. There are boxes and boxes of them and it’s so busy so we’ve taken on team members from other parts of Bedford that had to close down for a bit – like hospitality, because of the coronavirus (restrictions),” he says.
For the most part though, the 56-year-old works on complex irrigation systems and at show time, helps the team assemble more than 200,000 showbags every year.
“I get in at 8 o’clock, wash my hands of course, and then Adam my supervisor tells me Mark you’re working on Pope products today and off I go, I just love the variety and the team environment too.”
That team environment was tested recently during the COVID-19 crisis when many clients chose to stay home – especially those who had compromised immune systems.
But not Mark…
“Well I’m still pretty healthy and I can’t imagine sitting around at home. I’d get so bored!”
“You know in nine years-time I’ll be 65 so that means I’ll have clocked up 50 years at Bedford. Pretty good huh?” he said.
“You know in nine years time I’ll be 65 so that means I’ll have clocked up 50 years at Bedford. Pretty good huh?”