Fire chief to step down as she takes on new role
West Sussex chief fire officer Sabrina Cohen-Hatton will step down from her current position later this year to become the new chief fire officer to lead Hampshire and Isle Of Wight Fire and Rescue Service.
She will become the organisation's first female fire chief, replacing current officer Neil Odin.
Ms Cohen-Hatton joined West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service in 2019, having previously worked with THE London Fire Brigade and Surrey Fire and Rescue.
In 2023, she was awarded the King's Fire Service Medal for distinguished service and gallantry.
Speaking of her appointment, Ms Cohen-Hatton said: 'I am truly honoured to have been appointed to lead Hampshire and Isle of Wight Fire and Rescue Service and am incredibly excited to begin this new role to ensure that the Service continues to deliver for the residents of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight.
'I would like to formally put on record my thanks to the service's current chief fire officer, Neil Odin, who I have been privileged to work alongside for many years.
'I know that his time leading the service will leave a lasting legacy that I will work with to ensure that residents in Hampshire and the Isle of Wight are kept safe from the risk of fire and emergencies.'
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She added: 'I am incredibly proud of the time that I spent at West Sussex Fire and Rescue Service, where I was equally as privileged to work with some incredible people as we worked together to deliver the service's improvement plan.
'It is with a heavy heart that I leave the service but know that I am leaving the service in safe hands and I take with me many fond memories and friendships.
'I am very much looking forward to working with all colleagues at Hampshire and Isle of Wight Fire and Rescue Service to uphold all of the fantastic work that all of its teams deliver each and every day to keep the residents living and working in its communities safe.'
Ms Cohen-Hatton first developed an interest in the fire service when selling the Big Issue as a teenager.
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She had experienced a period of homelessness from the age of 15 and was inspired to help others when they were most at need.
Ms Cohen-Hatton is now an ambassador for The Big Issue, as well as an advocate of Prince William's Homewards Foundation.
Hampshire and Isle of Wight Fire Authority chairman Councillor Rhydian Vaughan MBE said: 'The role of chief fire officer is one of huge responsibility, and following our rigorous recruitment process, I am certain Sabrina is the right person to lead us forward.'
'I am very much looking forward to welcoming Sabrina when she formally joins us later this year. As a fire authority we look forward to working with her and to support her in being at the helm of this incredible organisation.'
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It was 5 a.m. on a Thursday in May and Marshall Cohen was furious about the state of his cucumbers. He'd ordered them earlier that morning at a farm stand in the Ontario Food Terminal, the biggest wholesale fruit and vegetable market in Canada. As is the custom, Cohen's order was delivered to his truck, parked at a loading bay at the far end of the terminal, just off the Queensway in Etobicoke. But when the cucumbers arrived, Cohen's truck driver noticed yellow spots and bruises. He took photos and sent them to Cohen, who was still walking around the market, now looking for size-25 hothouse tomatoes. 'It's a joke!' Cohen screamed when he saw the photos. He forwarded them to the cucumber salesman, waited a few minutes, then got him on the phone. 'I'd say good morning, but it's not a very good morning,' Cohen said. 'Did you see the pictures I just sent you?' The salesman hadn't seen the photos. 'Well you look at those f——-g pictures,' he said. 'Are you f——-g kidding me? 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But he is out of time, still insisting on face-to-face deals in a world of screens, holding out hope that he can pass on his secrets and his methods before he retires, because if he doesn't, it will be a loss for everyone in this city who finds pleasure in a perfect piece of fruit. On the phone, the cucumber salesman tried to explain that they'd sent the wrong pallet by mistake. Cohen interrupted: 'Please exchange it now. Goodbye.' When he hung up, he hit the button on his phone so hard that his arm swung back, as if he'd fired a gun. The food terminal operates as a secret world in the middle of the city. More than two billion pounds of produce flow through the food terminal every year, making it one of the most important hubs in the North American fruit and vegetable trade. The public is forbidden inside, but behind the gatehouse, just off the Gardiner Expressway, buyers are making split-second decisions that determine what people around the province eat. 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The strength of your local market's produce section depends on how the buyer navigates those options, or whether they choose to buy at all. Earlier this month, for instance, grapes were caught in a gap in the global weave of growing seasons. The last of the good, late-season grapes from Peru and Chile were gone and Mexico's season was just starting up, so the available grapes were small and sour. Some buyers went for the Mexican crop anyway, because they needed to get grapes on the shelf. Not Cohen. His method, which he learned from the old buyers who mentored him in the early 1980s, is probably best described as: Bite It, Squeeze It, Smell It. If the product does not pass that test, he walks. 'You can't buy over the phone,' he told me recently. 'I don't trust anybody. I want to see.' I met Cohen in 2021, when I was working on a story and needed a guide at the food terminal. 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Power jacks, the delivery carts that are central to the terminal's chaotic ballet, are always buzzing around with skids of produce, reversing at high speed into impossible parking spots. 'Marshall!' the man yelled. Cohen barely even noticed the chaos. A power jack would come within centimetres of him and he wouldn't flinch. 'They know not to hit the old man,' he said. Earlier in his career, a power jack clipped him so badly he thought it snapped his ankle. It didn't, but he couldn't walk for four days. I asked what he said to the driver. 'What do you think I said to him?' This spring, he introduced me to growers, salespeople and other buyers, and gave each a similar instruction: 'Tell him the truth. No bulls—-.' Then Cohen would walk away so I could ask them about him. But he never went far and I'd hear him in the distance, shouting on the phone. 'Marshall is part of the elite club,' Pino Prosa, a salesman at Canadian Fruit & Produce told me. 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On the way to Welsh Bros., Cohen's boss called, asking Cohen to add size-27 kiwis to his list, which at that point included about two dozen items, including four cases of figs, 20 of the fingerling potatoes, two of the watermelon radish, and a case of French beans. 'OK, listen, the French beans are all s—-,' he told his boss. 'They're all spotted. They're garbage.' At Welsh Bros.' farm stand, Cohen waved over the asparagus, like he was warming his hands on its glow. There was no smell to it. Bad asparagus stinks like fish, he said. Each Welsh Bros. bunch had straight spears that were all the same size, so they'd cook evenly. Cohen pulled out a piece and ran his finger up it, tracing the flashes of blue and purple in the tip. 'Just look at this,' he said. 'This stuff talks to you.' Cohen is lean with a wooden walk that makes him look almost like a bird of prey, the kind you see in an enclosure at a sanctuary, slower and gnarled, but still, no one's putting their finger in the cage. There are also days when he says he feels 35, when the weather is right and the arthritis in his shoulders and knees isn't acting up. 'I've looked at people my age, even younger, and they've retired too early. Their brain has gone soft, their muscle tone has gone soft,' he said. 'I have my cappuccino in the morning, talk to the guys. It's sort of like a way of life.' Until last year, he was the buyer for Summerhill Market, a long stint that owner Brad McMullen said helped elevate the chain's produce department. Before that, Cohen was the buyer for his own small chain of stores, Eglinton Fine Foods, for almost 25 years. He sold cars for a few years before Summerhill brought him back to the terminal. Lately, he starts at about 4 a.m. and works four or five hours a day, buying for what's known as a jobber, a company that supplies restaurants, grocers and institutions. Marshall Cohen leaves one of the produce showrooms at the Ontario Food Terminal, holding his handwritten list of more than two dozen items he needed to buy that morning, which included fingerling potatoes, French beans, limes, figs and watermelon radish. Over the course of his career, Cohen has watched the terminal change. Since the 1950s, the terminal has been the main stock exchange for fruit and vegetables, a central gathering place for farmers from all over the province. More recently, major grocery chains have opened their own giant produce distribution centres and left the terminal. The big grocers still do business here when their own warehouses run short on items. But the terminal is now a lifeline for independents, who can't rely on sprawling corporate supply chains — the family farmers, regional supermarket banners, chefs, caterers, ethnic grocers and start-up food manufacturers. 'It feels like it's from a different era,' said University of Toronto assistant professor Sarah Elton, who studies the terminal. 'It's so vital and important for today, also.' Marshall Cohen on the phone at the Ontario Food Terminal. The warehouses operate like big refrigerated showrooms, with pallets of product on display from all over the world and salespeople roaming the floor. 'I might get lucky with limes here,' he said, digging into a box at one of the showrooms. 'Woah, woah, I'm going to buy these. These are beautiful. These are nice. They're firm, clean.' I asked if they were the right size. 'That's the perfect one,' he whispered at me as we approached the salesman to negotiate a price. 'Don't say nothing.' A lot of the time, I felt like the new boyfriend at someone else's family dinner. Cohen played the helpful uncle, leaning in to add the necessary context to what was going on in front of me: That salesman used to be the toughest guy at the terminal. That man just lost his wife. That kid shouldn't have bought all those watermelons. In the hall, Cohen flagged down a young guy who'd worked his way up at one of the wholesalers. 'What do you call me?' he asked. 'The Legend?' the man said. 'No, besides that,' Cohen said. 'Oh! Uncle Marsh,' the man said. I got the sense that Cohen sees Uncle Marsh as his last great role, his King Lear. 'He still calls some of my friends, to this day, to check in on them,' said Cohen's 51-year-old son, Justin. 'He would call my business partner when I was out of town just to check in and make sure I was doing a good job.' When Justin was at university, before cellphones, Cohen would call Justin's house. 'I would hear my roommates answer the phone and be on the phone for 10 minutes talking to someone,' Justin, the eldest of Cohen's three sons, said. 'And then finally they would say, 'Hey it's your dad, he wants to talk to you.' ' A few times this spring, usually in the late morning when his buying was done, Cohen confessed to me that something was nagging at him. It was part of the reason he was still working at 78. He wanted to find an apprentice, but he had left Summerhill too abruptly to properly train one. 'I don't think that's ever going to happen now,' he said. 'It's too late.' The best he can do, at this point, is slowly let his secrets slip, here and there. 'Did you see the Rainier cherries?' he told some younger buyers recently. 'Go look at them.' It would have taken at least a year, likely two, to pass on all his rules and stratagems. One of them has to do with spreading your business around to different suppliers. If there's a fire on a banana ship and you haven't been spreading your banana business around, you probably won't have a relationship with the one supplier at the terminal who still has bananas that day. Another rule, he told me, is to 'never give a guy a third chance.' I thought at first it must have something to do with fear and respect. But it was actually about forgiveness. Don't give a guy a third chance, but you've got to give him a second. About an hour or so after the ugly phone call, Cohen looped back around to see the cucumber salesman face to face. His name was Khushal Bhinder, one of the younger produce dealers at the farmers' market. 'I've got to give this guy credit,' Cohen said on the way to see Bhinder. 'He started with nothing.' Bhinder smiled when he saw Cohen coming. Cohen pulled him into a hug. 'I'm sorry,' Cohen said softly. 'I'm sorry.' 'Hey, it's OK,' the salesman told him. 'You can say anything.'
