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This paper is a conversation piece which highlights the ways in which succession planning in large company might be handled. The discussion focuses on Christopher Oughtred the former Chairman of William Jackson Food Group, one of the largest family businesses in the UK. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This paper presents a conversation with a panel of leading family business experts and a family business owner. The paper presents latest thoughts on family business research, insights into a real family business succession project and reflections from a former Chairman on the succession process.

Findings highlight possible stages and requirements of a successful transition and succession plan. Also suggestions for areas of further research are presented.

The conversation recorded in this paper represents a rare opportunity to obtain reflections and insights on a succession process and how it was managed in a large family business. The conversation also highlights the kinds of challenges often experienced by family businesses during transition and succession. As a case study this is an exemplar of how succession might be planned.

The purpose of this paper is to consider the factors affecting the success of succession planning in family businesses.

The study reports on a panel discussion in which the former chairman of the William Jackson Food Group describes the processes put in place to manage succession at this family firm and his own experience of handing over to his successor.

Once upon a time, saying that you were going into the family business marked the end of any career discussion. Now it’s just the beginning – interest in family firms has never been greater. Succession planning is a subject guaranteed to generate questions – everyone wants to know how to get it right. Fortunately, it’s an area where some are happy to share their experience.

The paper highlights the need for more longitudinal research on family firms.

This paper provides a practical guide to structures and processes that can facilitate succession planning in family firms.

It draws attention to the emotional and psychological impact of succession on the retiring individual and the need to create life structures to replace former business involvement.

This paper aims to present a frank discussion of the approach to succession planning taken by one family business and the broader research questions that it raises.

Communications regarding this column should be addressed to Mrs. Cheney, Peabody Library School, Nashville, Tenn. 37203. Mrs. Cheney does not sell the books listed here. They are available through normal trade sources. Mrs. Cheney, being a member of the editorial board of Pierian Press, will not review Pierian Press reference books in this column. Descriptions of Pierian Press reference books will be included elsewhere in this publication.

The Ministry of Health have issued a Circular (No. 2198, November 25th, 1940) reminding local authorities of the measures which can usually be taken to protect the public against the spread of the diseases commonly conveyed by food, i.e., diseases of the enteric group (typhoid and paratyphoid fevers), dysentery, food poisoning and intestinal parasitism. The Circular continues: One of the commonest causes of the spread of the enteric diseases is the contamination of food, including milk, by the hands of persons excreting the causal organisms of the disease, whether they are actually suffering from the disease, or are chronic carriers of the infection, or are persons temporarily excreting the causal organisms without themselves being ill. The Milk and Dairies Order, 1926, confers on medical officers of health in Articles 18 and 19 powers relating to infected milk supplies and to persons having access to the milk, milk vessels, etc., at registered premises whose employment may be likely to lead to the spread of infectious disease. It also requires generally under Article 15 that every person engaged in the milking of cows or the distribution or measuring of milk or otherwise having access to the milk or to the churns or other milk receptacles shall keep his clothing and person in a cleanly condition. Article 23 of the Order requires that in connection with the milking of cows the hands of the milker shall be thoroughly washed and dried before milking, and throughout the milking be kept free from contamination. With respect to food and drink in general, provision is made in Part III of the First Schedule to the Public Health (Infectious Diseases) Regulations, 1927, whereby on a report by the medical officer of health, the local authority can (1) in any case of enteric fever or dysentery occurring in the district by notice in writing require, in addition to other precautions, that the person specified in the notice shall discontinue any occupation connected with the preparation or handling of food or drink for human consumption and (2) require the medical examination by the medical officer of health or a medical officer acting on his behalf of a person suspected by the medical officer of health to be a carrier of enteric fever or dysentery infection who is employed in any trade or business connected with the preparation or handling of food or drink for human consumption, and can suspend such person from his employment for a specified period if as a result of the examination or from bacteriological or protozoological examination of material obtained at any such examination, of material obtained at any such examination, the medical officer of health is of opinion that the person is such a carrier. Apart, however, from conditions which can be dealt with by the temporary discontinuance of work by persons actually suffering from the disease or found to be carriers of it, experience shows that outbreaks of disease of the enteric group and of food poisoning are not uncommonly caused, or their range extended, by the handling of food by persons who have not previously been suspected to be suffering from or carrying disease, and the Minister is advised that a substantial number of consequential cases could be avoided if all persons engaged in the preparation or handling of food intended for sale were habitually to take the elementary precautions required by law. The relevant statutory provisions as regards food other than milk are those contained in Section 13 (1) of the Food and Drugs Act, 1938, which read as follows :—

In a previous article we have called attention to the danger of eating tinned and bottled vegetables which have been coloured by the addition of salts of copper and we have urged upon the public that no such preparations should be purchased without an adequate guarantee that they are free from copper compounds. Copper poisoning, however, is not the only danger to which consumers of preserved foods are liable. Judging from the reports of cases of irritant poisoning which appear with somewhat alarming frequency in the daily press, and from the information which we have been at pains to obtain, there can be no question that the occurrence of a large number of these cases is to be attributed to the ingestion of tinned foods which has been improperly prepared or kept. It is not to be supposed that the numerous cases of illness which have been ascribed to the use of tinned foods were all cases of metallic poisoning brought about by the action of the contents of the tins upon the metal and solder of the latter. The evidence available does not show that a majority of the cases could be put down to this cause alone; but it must be admitted that the evidence is in most instances of an unsatisfactory and inconclusive character. It has become a somewhat too common custom to put forward the view that so‐called “ptomaine” poisoning is the cause of the mischief; and this upon very insufficient evidence. While there is no doubt that the presence in tinned goods of some poisonous products of decomposition or organic change very frequently gives rise to dangerous illness, so little is known of the chemical nature and of the physiological effects of “ptomaines” that to obtain conclusive evidence is in all cases most difficult, and in many, if not in most, quite impossible. A study of the subject leads to the conclusion that both ptomaine poisoning and metallic poisoning—also of an obscure kind—have, either separately or in conjunction, produced the effects from time to time reported. In view of the many outbreaks of illness, and especially, of course, of the deaths which have been attributed to the eating of bad tinned foods it is of the utmost importance that some more stringent control than that which can be said to exist at present should be exercised over the preparation and sale of tinned goods. In Holland some two or three years ago, in consequence partly of the fact that, after eating tinned food, about seventy soldiers were attacked by severe illness at the Dutch manœuvres, the attention of the Government was drawn to the matter by Drs. VAN HAMEL ROOS and HARMENS, who advocated the use of enamel for coating tins. It appears that an enamel of special manufacture is now extensively used in Holland by the manfacturers of the better qualities of tinned food, and that the use of such enamelled tins is insisted upon for naval and military stores. This is a course which might with great advantage be followed in this country. While absolute safety may not be attainable, adequate steps should be taken to prevent the use of damaged, inferior or improper materials, to enforce cleanliness, and to ensure the adoption of some better system of canning.

A Report has been issued by the Medical Research Council upon the investigations of the Salmonella Group, with special reference to food‐poisoning, conducted by Dr. William G. Savage and Mr. P. Bruce White. In a preface to the report, it is stated that early in 1921 the Ministry of Health invited the co‐operation of the Medical Research Council in the promotion of a scheme of investigation into outbreaks of food‐poisoning, of which the general lines had been arranged by the Ministry in consultation with Dr. W. G. Savage, medical officer of health for Somersetshire. Nearly nine‐tenths of food‐poisoning outbreaks are due to organisms of the Salmonella or Gaertner group of bacteria, and although much successful work has been done in the identification and classification of these organisms and in tracing the causes of particular outbreaks of poisoning, we have very little knowledge of the paths, whether through animal infections or otherwise, by which these organisms have found their way originally into the food to which their subsequent ill‐effects may have been traced. The council undertook to promote further investigation. They secured the whole‐time services of Mr. P. Bruce White for the bacteriological work required, and by the courtesy of Professor Walker Hall he was enabled to work in the bacteriological laboratories of the University of Bristol, in close touch with Dr. Savage at Weston‐super‐Mare. The field inquiries were arranged by the Food Department of the Ministry of Health, with the assistance of medical officers of health and of veterinary surgeons. In these, Dr. Savage and Mr. Bruce‐White co‐operated while conducting the laboratory investigations. The results already gained include some important advances in our knowledge of the natural history of organisms of the Salmonella group, and a record of the details of many varieties of outbreaks of food‐poisoning among human beings. That side of the inquiry, in which it was hoped to deal effectively with the paths of infection through domestic or agricultural animals, has halted, in spite of much effort, for want of better facilities in this country for systematic studies of comparative pathology, but it is hoped that in the early future the work can be extended successfully in this direction. The introduction to the report explains that the primary object of the investigation has been the elucidation, not merely of the causes of bacterial food‐poisoning outbreaks, which are for the most part known, but the paths by which infection is transmitted to the food. The latter, in spite of much work, remains largely unascertained. Since the majority of outbreaks, and practically all of any importance, which occur in this country are due to specific infection or intoxication with bacilli of the Salmonella group, work has been restricted to that group. The problem is so complex that the investigators have repeatedly been compelled to branch off into studies which at first may not seem to be germane to the primary object, but they are necessary deviations and bear directlv upon the work. The report is divided into three parts. Part I. contains an extensive survey of the serological properties of the group. It shows that the sub‐grounds described are definite entities which arc fairly clear‐cut, and which do not pass into one another under any known conditions. It is hoped that these studies, following on the valuable work of Schütze and others, will establish the different sub‐groups or types on a clearly recognizable basis. In Part 2 the investigators have tried to demonstrate that these sub‐groups not only have a definite distribution in nature, but have become somewhat specialised in their disease‐producing characters. It is obvious that until this is done it is not possible to disentangle their relationships to disease or to place the aetiology of food‐poisoning on a firm basis. The definitions and distinctions between the different sub‐groups have been so confused in the past that the essential importance of this relationship has largely been overlooked. In Part 3 experimental work is advanced which the investigators consider helps to explain the differing disease‐producing rôles of these sub‐groups.

From these and similar clinical experiments, together with the results of animal experimentation, it may be said that most modern authorities include xerophthalmia and night blindness among the diseases resulting from deficient diet. Night blindness, in fact, is considered to be a delicate test of vitamin A deficiency.

This is the age of research. What was once a highly selective privilege in just a few professions that could be counted on one's fingers has since the last war become a feature of every conceivable branch of science and trade, to which millions in money are devoted. The connection often seems remote, if not a little spurious. Perhaps it may be due to the enormous emphasis on the teaching of science and technology in recent years, but we see what Sir William Dale calls “these turnspits of modern science” ready to undertake, and various official bodies to finance by grants, research into almost anything. The amount spent, for example, on cancer research through the years and all over the world, which incidentally has produced very little in the way of real advancement towards a cure, must be phenomenal, but it is now probably dwarfed by the colossal sums available for trade and market research. We even see research by opposing groups, one endeavouring to prove, the other to refute some particular hypothesis. Much of it appears to lack realism or to be of any great practical value and at too high a theoretical level, including masses of statistics, without which the younger generation of scientists appears to think research valueless, if not impossible.

It is a well known fact that bacteria play a large part in the success or failure of the satisfactory production of dairy products, but the role of yeasts and moulds should not be overlooked. These living organisms, commonly known as fungi, are the next higher form of life in the vegetable world after the bacteria stage. Their form of growth resembles the growth of plants in that they reproduce by budding, and their spores, analogous to the seeds of plants, are the means whereby many species propagate further generations. The yeast cell is much larger than the ordinary bacterium, so that it is possible to study them with the aid of much lower magnifications. When grown on solid media the yeasts give colonies not unlike those of bacteria except that the edges of the colonies are less defined, the colonies themselves project well above the surface of the media, and their surfaces are usually of a rough appearance. A good example of mould growth is that of the ordinary “green mould.”—Yeasts usually prefer to grow on the surface of liquids, and moulds are found to grow most vigourously on solid or semi‐solid media, such as meat, cheese, butter, etc. The growth of bacteria in the media hinders the simultaneous growth of the fungi, so that it is only after the media has become too acid for the growth of bacteria that yeasts and moulds are able to grow. In support of this theory it has been found that fungi will grow on the surface of sterile milk, but ordinary fresh milk containing bacteria is not a suitable media as the fungi cannot compete with the bacteria. It is found, therefore, that only bacteria proliferate in fresh milk. However, when milk has become sour bacterial growth is arrested, and it is then that mould growth becomes perceptible. The fungi tolerate a relatively large amount of acid. Media used for their cultivation is generally standardised to a ph of about 4.5. The optimum temperature for their growth is in the region of 75°–90° F. Some species will grow at 32° F., others even below this temperature. Low temperatures are not lethal to the fungi, so that when infected products are removed from cold storage growth may occur. The temperatures required to kill them and their spores generally falls between 130°–180° F. Most yeasts are killed at temperatures above 120° F., while their spores may have to be exposed to higher temperatures.

The review of food consumption elsewhere in this issue shows the broad pattern of food supplies in this country; what and how much we eat. Dietary habits are different to what they were before the last War, but there have been few real changes since the end of that War. Because of supplies and prices, shifts within commodity groups have occurred, e.g. carcase meat, bread, milk, but overall, the range of foods commonly eaten has remained stable. The rise of “convenience foods” in the twenty‐five year since the War is seen as a change in household needs and the increasing employment of women in industry and commerce, rather than a change in foods eaten or in consumer preference. Supplies available for consumption have remained fairly steady throughout the period, but if the main food sources, energy and nutrient content of the diet have not changed, changes in detail have begun to appear and the broad pattern of food is not quite so markedly stable as of yore.