Welcome to Carol Kirk, our new area Technical Sales Manager

Born and bred in Fife and living close to Kirkcaldy, Carol Kirk has joined the Joice and Hill Technical Sales Team to take over from Dick McGillvary, as Area Technical Sales Manager for Scotland and North West England. She brings a wealth of poultry experience to the role, backed by an HVQ in Poultry gained at Lincoln University.

Her career began in 1993 as weekend egg collector for Daylay Foods which later became Deans Foods and then part of Noble Foods. Carol’s next step with the company was to work on their free-range egg production farms before becoming a trainee manager in cage production.

As an assistant manager on their white bird project, she was responsible for flocks of Bovans White layers with the eggs destined for processing, whilst simultaneously managing a second Noble farm.

Still with Noble Foods, Carol was promoted to Area Manager, assuming control of eight cage farms, looking after the birds from point of housing to end of lay. “My focus was on bird welfare, staff welfare and health & safety” she explains.

To facilitate the transition from cage systems to colony housing, Noble Foods opened a 500,000-colony site and packing centre at Thornton, choosing Carol to run the entire operation, including the grading of free-range eggs coming in from remote free-range farms.

“At that time, we housed the birds at 123,000 per shed”, Carol recalls. “I was responsible for everything including ordering huge amounts of feed, looking after the birds, grading and eventual delivery to supermarkets”. During this time Carol managed Hendrix breeds including the Bovans Brown.

After this long spell with Noble Foods, Carol moved to Dorset to become General Manager at MB Crocker with responsibility for 600,000 birds housed in enriched colony systems and flocks of 32,000 free range birds. During this spell in the South West, Carol again worked with Bovans Brown and met Winston Westcott for the first time.

Missing Scotland, Carol left to return home, becoming an agent for both MSD Animal Health, and Biolink Ltd, a livestock biosecurity solutions specialist.

On securing her new role with Joice and Hill, Carol explains “This is the job I have always wanted. In fact, I have been trying to persuade Dick to retire for years! I am looking forward to working with producers to get the best from the birds. I have complete confidence in the Hendrix Genetics layers and the portfolio of breeds means we have a bird to suit every customer”.