Our staff

Meet some of our dedicated farming staff...

Ed Bastin, Senior certification officer

Ed is senior Certification Officer looking after some of our UK and International growers and producers. Ed studied organic farming at the Scottish Agricultural College and worked on horticultural units and livestock farms in the UK and Australia. He also spent two years working for a multiple retailer in India setting up a box scheme and organic food department.

Finn Cottle, Trade consultant

Finn has spent more than 20 years within the trading departments of two of the major supermarket groups in the UK, running various buying departments across the fresh food sector. This has given her a wide range of experience within both food manufacturing, supply chain and category management for retail.

In 2006, she joined the Board of Noble Foods as Marketing & Strategy Director, giving her first hand experience of supplying food into supermarkets as well as bringing her closer to farming and animal welfare issues.

Just over two years ago, Finn took up the opportunity to work with the Soil Association as a Trade Consultant, using her knowledge and network to help build relationships with licensees and drive growth within the organic market. Her retail perspective has proved to be invaluable in considering the challenges which the organic sector faces: she has a specific focus on Dairy where she spent a big part of her retail career.

Finn really enjoys working with organic companies and the passion with which they approach their business. Her shopping basket is now much fuller of organic products as she has gradually been converted.

Rob George, Producer technical manager

Rob has a farming background and on leaving school went on to study mechanics and engineering, following both of these with an honours degree in agriculture from Harper Adams University college in Shropshire.

His studies are complemented by extensive practical experience working on the wide range of jobs found on dairy, sheep and arable farms. His fall-back career options include construction and call centre work!

Rob started with Soil Association Certification in 2002 as a certification officer, moving to an advisory role as a senior technical officer for the charity for two years.

After this he took the role of producer technical manager back with Soil Association Certification where he answers a wide range of queries from licensees, certification officers and inspectors. He also works with the certification and quality teams in order to reduce unnecessary red tape and is an inspector for producers.

Tom Hartley, Certification officer

Tom studied horticulture with global plant use at Duchy College, Cornwall. He also has practical experience having worked as a grower at Farrington’s Farm Shop, running the vegetable box scheme and the supply of vegetables to local Food for Life award-winning schools. 

Sarah Hathway, Technical manager

Sarah graduated from the Royal Agricultural College (RAC) at Cirencester and went to run a mixed holding for several years before joining Soil Association Certification in 2000 as
a certification officer. Her knowledge of organic production systems allowed her to move quickly on to certification manager.

Sarah’s technical ability and practical approach was recognised early in her career and she became the first producer technical manager in 2003. Her in depth knowledge of licensees and
standards development has ensured a smooth implementation of new and revised areas of Soil Association standards. She currently sits on the IFOAM standards committee.

Sarah has dealt with many complicated farming models over the years and her practical solutions have gained her the respect of licensees and colleagues both in Soil Association
Certification and the charity. A good portion of her time is spent in discussion with licensees and investigating their new and innovative techniques in organic farming.

Her limited spare time is spent introducing her young family to farming life or indulging her passion as a keen horse woman.

Dr Phil Morley, Trade Relations Manager

Phil joined the Soil Association as Trade Relations Manager for Fresh Produce in July 2011 after working at a senior level in UK and European horticulture for the past 15 years.

A graduate of the University of Leeds, Phil had a background in agronomy and organic farming and was keen to apply his passion for organic production to the challenges of commercial horticulture. He was originally employed by UK tomato producer Wight Salads, to develop the then nascent world of large scale organic production in glasshouses.

Phil assisted Wight Salads in becoming the largest independent organic tomato producer in the EU, operating nurseries in the UK, Spain and Portugal. He has participated in organic standards development from an industry perspective for the past 12 years and is now a member of the Soil Association Horticultural Standards Committee as well as participating on several other industry and research forums.

Through his role as Head Technical Agronomist at Wight Salads, Phil has also worked with many of the major UK multiple retailers and has an excellent understanding of technical, growing and organic packhouse operations in the fresh produce industry.

Over the past decade Phil has taken part in leading and co-ordinating over £800,000 of Horticultural Development Council funded research. These projects have included some ground breaking work recently completed in insect pest management and soil biology in organic situations.

Madeleine Neale, Veterinary advisor

Since graduating from the Royal Veterinary College in 2001 Madeleine has not only worked in mixed practices for several years but has also been involved in the development and implementation of animal welfare standards. Soil Association standards have always made animal welfare one of its fundamental platforms.

The opportunity arose for Soil Association Certification to work with the University of Bristol Veterinary College to help improve animal welfare. Madeleine was hired and she spent the next three years working full time with Soil Association Certification and the University of Bristol to assist in implementing formal welfare assessment, within the certification process.

In September 2008 she became the first fully employed veterinary advisor to work with any certification body in the UK. In this role she continues to refine and improve welfare assessment along with providing veterinary knowledge and appropriate training to our staff. She was instrumental in securing the bid that has become the AssureWel project and will continue to be an integral part of the team that will ensure the success of AssureWel.

She currently lives in Sussex with her partner, who is a dairy farmer, and their young daughter.

Susi Seward, Certification officer

Susi studied the anthropology of food and farming, as well as gaining a certificate in organic gardening and volunteering on various organic holdings across Europe. She is interested in both the cultural and practical aspects of our food systems and is keen to expand her knowledge of organic horticulture, with a particular interest in top and soft fruit.

Jim Twine, Business development director

Jim has been involved in organic food and farming all his life. He was born on his parents’ livestock farm (after the vet came!) which has been organic since 1969. He has worked for the Soil Association in a range of business development, supply chain and marketing roles for over ten years. Jim is proud to be a Soil Association symbol holder, farming 500 acres in partnership with his lifelong friend Luke Hasell.