CHARLBURY, UK — The British Coffee Association (BCA) continues to expand through the appointment of Catriona Balfour as its new Communications and Public Affairs Manager. Balfour joins BCA from BBC Scotland where she held a number of roles in BBC News, across both radio and television, and for the past seven years has been the lead presenter for BBC Scotland’s morning news broadcasts.
Welcoming the appointment Paul Rooke, BCA Executive Director, said: “We are delighted that BCA has been able to appoint someone so experienced in the media, through both journalism and broadcasting.
The British Coffee Association has built very strong foundations through its communications programme over the last few years and UK coffee has much to be proud of in terms of what we do and voice on behalf on the industry. Catriona is the perfect person to now help us move this forward through her knowledge, experience and enthusiasm.”
The Communications and Public Affairs Manager is a newly created role for the BCA that will help to put more focus and resource across both internal and external communications for the UK coffee industry body.
Rooke added, “It is a very busy time for the Association, we are busy working with members across multiple pieces of UK legislation and consultations, have much proactive work to talk about in supporting sustainability issues such as waste, recycling and the circular economy, and we are ambitious in looking to grow our membership base further through 2021 and 2022. We are delighted to be able to welcome Catriona to the team.”
BCA has been extremely fortunate to have had a strong and committed communications agency support over the past few years from SHED Communications and, particularly, Director Sebastian Stokes, who will be closely involved through the handover period.
Whilst the past months have seen the focus of the whole food and drink sector concentrated on Covid and Brexit, 2021 is throwing up a whole range of issues, challenges and opportunities.
With BCA being able to bolster its in-house team the Association is well resourced to meet and embrace these challenges as we transition into a post-COVID setting with the learnings we have all made.
Catriona will report into BCA Executive Director, Paul Rooke, who formally took over BCA in March 2020, as well as work closely with the heads of the BCA Committees, notably Communications, Sustainability, and Technical & Regulatory.
