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Hello and welcome to Table Talk,

the Spectators' Food and Drink podcast.

I'm Olivia Potts, and today we're delighted to be joined by Emma Fox.

Emma Fox is a chief executive officer for Barry Brothers and Rudd,

the world's oldest fine wine and spirit merchant.

A retail veteran, Emma's broad functional experience has been shaped during a career spanning over 30 years,

working in high profile roles for several major retailers.

Emma, welcome to Table Talk.

Thank you, Olivia. Delighted to be here.

Emma, we're going to start where we always do at the beginning and ask you,

what are your earliest memories of food? Well, I think, well, actually I know, I was an incredibly fussy child and talking to my father the other day. I think it stems from, apparently I very nearly

died when I was about one year old.

I got dreadful salmonella poisoning. And the only thing that I could keep down was sugar

butties, as we'd call them in Lancashire. And so my dad used to make two slices of white

bread buttered with sugar in them. And even though I can't remember that when I was

one, I can certainly remember being so fussy that my father would say to my mum who was despairing,

I'll just make her a sugar butty. And the sugar butties evolved to when, when dad went off to

Holland for some business trip or other, it became hundreds and

thousands in the middle of two pieces of white bread with butter. So incredibly bad. I was,

yeah, I was a dreadfully fussy child. And I do remember my, I suppose, despite mum trying to

get more nutrients into me, I really didn't like very much food at all.

...