8 August 2013

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Responding to the Prime Minister's call to make apprenticeships the "new norm", Terry Jones, Director of Communications at the Food and Drink Federation (FDF), said:

“Growing our talent pool through apprenticeships is a key priority for food and drink manufacturers and is essential to our ability to deliver future growth. In 2011 our sector pledged to double the number of apprenticeships within food and drink manufacturing but we in fact smashed this target by quadrupling apprenticeships. FDF is now working on the next phase of the Apprenticeship Pledge, focusing on higher level qualifications and quality standards.

“Our sector urgently needs to secure a pipeline of young engineers to support our shared vision with government of delivering 20% growth by 2020. In addition to growing apprentice numbers, industry has developed a new engineering degree course to ensure that we address the skills gap and secure a talented future workforce. In partnership with the National Skills Academy for Food Drink and Sheffield Hallam University, FDF has developed MEng Food Engineering - the UK's first accredited engineering degree at Masters level dedicated entirely to food and drink manufacturing.

“There is no doubt that skills are the driving force to a successful industry. With 170,300 vacancies expected between 2010 and 2020 across a variety of job roles, young people really should consider a career in food and drink.”

Notes for editors:

1. The Food and Drink Federation (FDF) is the voice of the food and drink manufacturing industry – the UK's largest manufacturing sector.
2. Visit the industry's Food Engineering course website
3. The National Skills Academy for Food Drink is the food and drink manufacturing industry's skills body. The Academy was created in 2007 to facilitate sector specific training provision to drive up sector productivity and competitiveness in line with employer needs. Training organisations that become part of the Academy undergo rigorous quality checks and include both publicly and privately funded learning centres. Each delivers some aspect of skills development for the food and drink manufacturing industry as a whole, and/or specialist skills for one of its various sub- sectors.
4. Sheffield Hallam University is one of the UK's largest universities with more than 36,000 students, 27,000 of which are undergraduates. The University has the fourth highest number of postgraduate taught students in the UK and runs approximately 580 different courses. The University is England's largest provider of courses that involve work placements (such as a year in industry) and 91 per cent of the University's graduates are in work or further study six months after graduation.
5. Graduate Excellence has received co-investment from the "ukces"="" ukces""="ukces" ""="">UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES)
through the Employer Investment Fund.