Alan Murphy
Managing Director, ABN
Born in Irvine in Ayrshire, Alan was educated at Strathclyde University where he studied Chemical Engineering. He joined British Sugar in 1994 and spent 10 years there culminating in a senior operation role, responsible for 9 sugar factories. It was here where he started his direct involvement in agriculture through his role as part of a management team, developing Associated British Foods by product and feed business interests. Alan was part of the team that acquired J Bibby Agriculture in 1994 and became its Managing Director in 1996. In 1998 he became Deputy Managing Director of the wider ABN Group.
In 2000 he became Operations Director for Allied Bakers, who are better known for their Kingsmill and Allinson brands, and here he was responsible for supply chain management to the grocery retail sector, where he gained experience of meeting retail needs, especially delivering added value.
In 2004 he was part of the acquisition team that brought the No.2 in the world yeast business Burns Philip, known as ABN Mauri, into Associated British Foods and spent 10 months as Operations Director integrating it and developing the business plan. This business had 42 sites in over 20 countries.
In 2006 he spent 6 months living in Australia, where he managed the acquisition of a baking business for George Weston Foods. He re-joined AB Agri in January 2007 as Managing Director of ABN and is a Director of AB Agri; hence he has UK and global experience of both providing feed products to the livestock industry and an understanding of supply chains to the customer, agricultural and otherwise.
