Former SABMiller director takes bakeries role at RHM

RHM, the food giant, has appointed former SABMiller international marketing director Tim Dewey as the top marketer for its bread bakeries division. He takes over the role next week.

Dewey’s appointment follows the death of divisional marketing director Kate Taylor earlier this year (MW March 20).

He will report to bread bakeries division chief operating officer Miles Warnick.

He will oversee marketing across the Hovis, Mother’s Pride and Nimble brands. Dewey was previously at SABMiller, where he had worked for a year and a half (MW January 8, 2004). Before that he was international marketing director at William Grant & Sons but he left without a job to go to in summer 2003 (MW August 7, 2003). He has also worked at Unilever.

The appointment comes as RHM, which also owns the Mr Kipling brand, released its pre-close statement ahead of its end-of-year results, which are due to be announced on June 29. The company reported that it expected operating profits to be over &£170m for the year to April 30 up from &£158.2m the previous year.

The bread division has preformed well following its relaunch of the Hovis range under the “Healthiest Ever Hovis” last year (MW March 31, 2005) and the introduction of new products such as Hovis Invisible Crust.

However, it is suspending TV advertising for the Mr Kipling brand following weak sales. The &£3m marketing budget will be invested in in-store work and promotional activity for the second half of the year. It has reformulated the cake range to remove artificial colours and flavours and launched a lower fat, lower calorie range.