Jonathan’s Day in the Life at the Big Cheese

Hello. I’m Jonathan, The Big Cheese Making Kit’s International Development Officer.

When not travelling on epic, foreign Big Cheese business adventures, I am usually in our office speaking to our Korean, German or Dutch customers and distributors.  (see picture for demonstration of how I do this ). All this chatting, pricing and emailing has led us into some of the biggest department stores in Seoul, South Korea and soon some of the best gift and retail stores in Germany.

I don’t speak Korean, German or Dutch so this means some of my time involves going back and forth with translators/interpreters and distributors so that nothing is lost in translation. I find that a lot of countries don’t like to do business in English just in case they miss something thus making our job in different countries slightly more complicated.

A normal day includes meetings, phone calls and emails. We sometimes have cheese related parties but these are never planned and sometimes just happen without you knowing it. On Monday of this week I attended Edinburgh’s Export Week 2014 which was held at Murrayfield stadium here in Edinburgh. I was there to meet foreign delegates from different consumer groups with links to shops all over the world. I spoke with representatives from the Nordic Countries, USA, the Baltics and even Cuba! As we are hoping to expand on our current operations after Christmas this was a perfect way of touching base with other countries.

We also attended shows all of the UK. Just this week we’re at the Country Living Fair in Glasgow. I really enjoy meeting our customers, whether abroad or here in the UK!