Greencore's head-hunting of Tony Hynes from Northern Foods' Green Isle operation is one of the best appointments the food group has made since it went public.

This column has in the past been severely critical of Greencore for a perceived caution when it comes to acquisition. Now with a series of sizeable acquisitions - culminating in the Hazlewood deal - Greencore can reasonably claim to have refocused itself as a consumer foods company, with a sugar business that churns out huge volumes of free cash that helps to fund the expansion to consumer foods.

Tony Hynes is taking up the chief operating officer's job at Greencore. This is a job David Dilger filled during Gerry Murphy's stint as Greencore chief executive. When Murphy left, Dilger took over as chief executive, with the chief operating officer's job left unfilled.

In his new position, Tony Hynes will have day-to-day responsibility for all Greencore's operations, including, it seems, the crucial job of cutting the Hazlewood business down to size and producing the asset sales on which the acquisition was founded. The attraction of a board seat was, no doubt, one major attraction when the former Green Isle man was weighing up whether to jump ship to Greencore.