3 April 2014

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Last Friday (28 March), students from The Sheffield College of Applied Engineering visited Princes factory in Bradford to get an exclusive insight into what it's like to be an engineer in the food and drink industry - the UK's largest manufacturing sector.

The trip to the company's largest soft drinks factory gave 12 BTEC students, currently studying Mechanical Engineering or Electrical Engineering, a unique opportunity to discover how 'preforms' are converted in to plastic bottles, through moulding, cooling and thermosetting. Students also got to hear about the industry's new degree - MEng Food Engineering, delivered exclusively at Sheffield Hallam University, which is supported by over 40 top UK food and drink manufacturers including Princes.

The visit was part of food and drink manufacturers' drive to recruit students onto the industry-backed degree which has been specially designed to create employment-ready mechanical engineers with the skills most sought after by the industry.

The MEng Food Engineering degree offers real job prospects to its graduates. Amongst several other benefits, students starting the MEng Food Engineering degree course in September 2014 and 2015 will be eligible for a Food and Drink Federation bursary of £2,500*, and exclusive access to jobs only on offer to course graduates (subject to final grades, references and employer recruitment processes).

Students interested in the degree can attend the upcoming Sheffield Hallam University Open Days on 13 and 14 June 2014. For further details on the course and other student benefits, please go to www.foodengineer.co.uk.

A spokesperson for Princes said: “We have been delighted to host students from the Sheffield College of Applied Engineering at our factory, which is one of the leading soft drinks production sites in the UK. The food and drink manufacturing sector is often overlooked by young people and we want to show students that it's in fact leading the way in scientific and technological innovation and provides excellent career opportunities.”

Shabir Nazir, Tutorial Mentor, The Sheffield College of Applied Engineering, said: “Seeing the production challenge first-hand has provided the students with a valuable insight into food and drink manufacturing 'in action'. Engineering skills and qualifications are highly valued in today's job market, particularly in the food and drink sector and I'm certain this visit has given our students a taste for food engineering.”

Audrey Chivaura, Engineering student at the Sheffield College of Applied Engineering, said: “I think there are a lot of myths out there about the food and drink industry so it has been very interesting to see what it's really like. There are loads of career opportunities and further study options so it's definitely a career I want to consider.”

*Terms & Conditions apply

More information

For more information, please contact Rebecca Wilhelm on 07801 023 564

** Pictures from the visit are available on FDF Flickr site **

Note for Editors

1. MEng Food Engineering at Sheffield Hallam University course page.
2. The MEng Food Engineering at Sheffield Hallam University has been developed by Graduate Excellence, a partnership between the Food and Drink Federation, the National Skills Academy for Food & Drink and Sheffield Hallam University.
3. Companies supporting the MEng Food Engineering include: ABP UK, apetito, Ardo UK, Arla Foods, Burton's Biscuit Company, Cargill, Coca-Cola Enterprises, Dalehead Foods, F. Duerr & Sons, Fine Ladies Bakeries, Finsbury Foods, Fosters Bakery (Staincross), General Mills, Kavli UK, KP Snacks, Maple Leaf Foods, Mars, McCain Foods Ltd, Mondelèz International, Müller Dairy, Nestlè UK, New England Seafood, New Primebake, Princes Limited, PepsiCo UK, Pork Farms, Premier Foods, Silver Spoon, AB Worlds and Jordans & Ryvita, Simpsons Ready Foods, Tate and Lyle Sugars, United Biscuits, Warburtons, William Jackson Food Group.
4. The Food and Drink Federation (FDF) is the voice of the food and drink manufacturing industry – the UK's largest manufacturing sector.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. Graduate Excellence has received co-investment from the UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES) through the Employer Investment Fund.

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