Graduating with an honours degree in modern history, he contemplated becoming a journalist but later joined De La Rue.
[2] Haskins foresaw the huge demand for good quality prepared meals, and turned the company into Northern Foods, whose brands include Ski yoghurt and Bowyers sausages, while Marks and Spencer are the company's largest customer for ready meals.
[5] During 2001, at the height of the foot and mouth disease epidemic, he became Prime Minister Tony Blair's 'rural tsar'.
[6] In August 2005, it was revealed that Haskins had donated £2,000 to the campaign of Scottish Liberal Democrat Member of Parliament for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey, Danny Alexander.
He was a fellow board member of Yorkshire Forward and also Chairman of the Council of the Open University.