National Careers Week 2015 - The Digital Guide | Page 21

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THURSDAY ENTERPRISE

A TASTE OF CAREERS
IN FOOD AND DRINK
Food and drink is the UK’s largest
manufacturing sector, employing
around 400,000 people across a
number of jobs. The food industry has
been embracing new ideas and new
approaches for decades and brings
thousands of new products to market
every year.
Many of these products actually come
from small businesses as the sector is
predominantly made up of small and
medium-sized enterprises. Companies
like Joe & Seph’s Gourmet Popcorn
which produces innovative flavours
of popcorn from production kitchens
in North London, supplying outlets
including Selfridges, Waitrose and
Claridges Hotel.

Joe and Seph’s won the Growth
Business award at our recent FDF
Awards 2014 in recognition for its
sustainable business plan and growth
in the product range – the company
was launched with just five flavours
and has now grown to 40 including
flavours such as Gingerbread, Mojito
and Cheese on Toast.
There are not many other
manufacturing industries where you
can build a successful brand from
scratch without external funding. Many
small innovative start-ups go on to
develop into large successful
companies producing high quality
products.

This innovation and opportunities
makes our sector an exciting place to
work for future generations
whether in start-ups or established
large companies, yet we face a
significant skills shortage. By 2020
the industry will need 170,300 new
recruits and many of these roles will
be in managerial positions and other
professional occupations.

To enable the food and drink industry
to continue to develop and expand
we need to attract people with a wide
range of skills and experience, from
entrepreneurs to scientists and
engineers.
Rising tuition fees can prevent highly
talented young people from going to
university due to the huge costs and
no guarantee of employment after
graduation. That is why FDF, together
with more than 40 of the UK’s leading
food and drink producers, National
Skills Academy for Food and Drink
and Sheffield Hallam University (SHU)
has launched a new MEng Food
Engineering degree course to develop
the next generation of our industry’s
advanced engineers and leaders.

The first cohort of students on the
master’s degree began their studies in
September 2014. In addition to
following a curriculum developed
by the industry’s top engineers and
experts at SHU, students will gain
practical experience through paid
industry placements and are each
assigned an industry mentor to offer
guidance throughout their studies and
real insight into careers in industry.

The food and drink sector is an
exciting one to enter right now and
one with real career prospects in
companies of all different sizes.
Find out more at tastesuccess.co.uk.
Angela Coleshill
Director
Employment, Skills and Corporate
Services
Food and Drink Federation (FDF)