Centura appoints brand director following management reshuffle

Centura Foods has promoted Sue Knight to the role of brand director following a reshuffle of its senior management team.

Knight has been covering the role for eight months and was previously head of marketing for the company’s Sharwood’s food brand.

She takes over from Ginny Knox, who was on secondment to Centura’s innovations unit and has returned as the company’s managing director. Former Centura managing director Patrick Irving has left to join Manor Bakeries in the same role.

As well as having responsibility for Sharwood’s, the top-selling Indian food brand in the UK, Knight will oversee brands such as Bisto, Paxo and Robertson’s Preserves.

Sharwood’s has launched a raft of new products over the past year and revamped its packaging by putting the whole range in square jars. It has backed this with a &£5m advertising campaign created by TBWA/London, which aimed to show that cooking Asian food is a rewarding experience.

The ads introduced the new strapline “Stirring stuff” and featured Mariella Frostrup (MW September 26, 2002). Sharwood’s also moved into the Chinese food sector at the beginning of this year with its Oriental Essentials brand featuring flavours such as Wok Soy, Wok Oil and Thai Chilli.