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Freelance Journalist and PR Consultant

Crisis Management when you are all at sea

About Karen Peattie

Karen Peattie is a highly respected journalist with over 35 years of experience spanning weekly and national newspapers, trade publications, consumer magazines and online media.

In 2013, she was appointed managing editor of High Flyer, the official magazine of Glasgow Airport.

Specialising in the food & drink sector, grocery retail and wider business field, she works as a freelance journalist and editor, contributing to a wide range of publications including the The Herald on Sunday and The Herald. Karen also supports The Herald on Sunday in a production capacity, honing her proofreading skills in a high-pressure environment.

Karen contributes to Business HQ, a quarterly business publication produced by The Herald and regularly helps out on the award-winning business desk at The Herald. She has also worked for the business desk at The Times in Scotland.

As editor of Scottish Grocer magazine for 14 years (1988-2001), she is widely regarded as an industry expert with regard to the Scottish convenience and independent retail market and works as a contributing editor for the award-winning Scottish Local Retailer (SLR).

She has also worked closely with Scotland Food & Drink, the industry-led organisation that aims to grow the value of Scotland's food and drink sector from to £30bn by 2030 and build Scotland's international reputation as 'A Land of Food & Drink'.

As a PR consultant, she services a small number of clients operating within the food and drink sector, including the high-profile trade body, the Scottish Wholesale Association and JW Filshill, Scotland's oldest independent food and drink wholesaler.

Working with Quality Meat Scotland (QMS), the public body responsible for helping the Scottish red meat sector improve its efficiency and profitability, Karen has edited and compiled two cookbooks: Round the Table, a celebrity cookbook published as part of a campaign to encourage people to rediscover the benefits of taking time to eat together; and Favourite Recipes from Farming Folk, published by QMS to mark the centenary of NFU Scotland in 2013.

In 2006, she was commissioned by Robert Wiseman Dairies to chart the history of the firm's FRESH'N'LO, the semi-skimmed milk brand which celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2006.

More recently, she has worked with the SGF (Scottish Grocers' Federation) to edit a book charting the history of the trade association which celebrates its centenary in 2018.