Business acumen, baking skills and a passion for regional life – Katherine Sherrie is well-equipped for her new role at FPM Cereal Milling Systems.

The games Katherine Sherrie’s family played on road trips were a little different to your standard ‘I Spy’ or travel-sized ‘Ludo’. As a flour milling family with a passion for baked goods, the Sherries opted for ‘Name that crop!’ instead.

“We’d spend a lot of time on the road in country NSW and Qld, visiting farms and bakeries, so dad would quiz us on the crops we drove past along the way,” says Kat.

“He’d shout – ‘Kids, what’s that one?! No… it’s not sorghum, it’s barley!’. It’s so funny to look back on it now, but we’ve been in flour milling our whole lives, it’s who we are. We also have a firm rule to buy a sausage roll at every bakery we come across – obviously that’s crucial for quality control and to support our customers,” laughs Kat.

While the majority of her childhood was spent in Sydney, Kat’s parents Kevin and Robyn established FPM Cereal Milling Systems in Tamworth when she was 14 years old. From that moment on they visited the town regularly, spending long weekends and school holidays in regional NSW.

“My first job was in Tamworth, waitressing at a Thai restaurant during the Country Music Festival,” says Kat.

“I have so many fond memories of this town so it was really exciting to move here in November 2021 and seize the opportunity to work alongside my parents in the family business.”

Flipping the script

In a previous life, Kat wracked up an impressive 12-year career in marketing and advertising in Sydney, Perth and the United States. She worked in technical audience marketing for Microsoft and most recently led a team of digital specialists in a Perth-based, full service agency focusing on social media, email marketing and digital content. While she loved every second of it – and established a rep as the workplace baker known for her gourmet sausage rolls – the enforced separation from her family due to Covid’s border closures ultimately triggered the move.

“I’m very close to my family, so that time apart made me crave being home and I felt that pull to return to Tamworth,” she says.

“My parents are also in their 60s now, they’re starting to think about the next chapter in their lives, so we talked about the possibility of either myself or my brother running the mill. He wasn’t keen, so we’re flipping the script and I’m here for every second of it.”

While she might be one of the very few women at the helm in Australia’s flour milling industry, Kat’s excited to use her well-honed business nous to forge her own path in the male-dominated profession. Future plans include overcoming logistical challenges, expanding the brand’s product line and staying nimble.

“Freight and logistics is our number one challenge – but I also think that’s an area of opportunity,” Kat explains.

“Flour is a low-margin product, so any increase in freight can easily take out our profit margin. That’s where the potential for future growth lies, whether that be in the form of a distribution warehouse in a city centre or investing further in our own tankers so we control our transportation.

“As for our product line, we’re primarily milled wheat, rye, and some other specialty products like purple wheat and spelt. But we’re getting more requests from our customers for alternative grains as people switch to more sustainable, plant-based diets – so that’s a really exciting area for us to explore.”

While Kat’s keen to see the business evolve, it will be a gradual process working alongside her parents over the next few years, learning the trade and building relationships with their growers and customers.

“I’ve often worked with clients who want to get bigger and grow their market share rapidly – but bigger isn’t always better. We’d rather grow organically and ensure we can maintain a high quality product,” adds Kat.

“Our size means we can easily change our milling process if someone comes to us with a specific request – being nimble is a huge opportunity and that’s how my parents started the business, from the perspective of doing something differently.

“That’s made us a very unique, agile mill and we’ll always stay true to those roots. Most of the growers we source from we’ve been using since the business started, in some cases we’re now dealing with the children of those farmers. I love that and I’m so excited to be a part of the next generation charged with steering this ship, right alongside them.”

An education in flour

In 2022, Kat Sherrie won a Future Women / NSW Government Rural Women’s scholarship – a 12-month leadership program awarded to just 24 women from across the state in rural and regional areas.

The program is designed to connect driven and passionate women from all ages and backgrounds to assist them develop leadership skills and help them progress to the next stage of their career.

Prior to that, Kat also won the 2020 Future Leader of the Year for Western Australia by the Australian Marketing Institute.

“It’s a huge honour to be recognised in these ways, and be given the opportunity to learn more alongside some incredible women. I’m also studying a Flour Milling Certificate through the UK Flour Millers distance learning program, a globally-recognised milling qualification. I’m excited to learn more about how we can combine traditional skills with modern technology to create beautiful products.”

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