20 November 2014

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Eighteen female students from Withington Girls School, Loreto College, Salford City College, Xaverian College and Bridegwater school are fresh from a visit to the Manchester-based factory of well-known food producer Cargill as part of a new partnership with youth skills initiative MyKindaCrowd.

The partnership aims to promote careers in food and drink engineering and give students a first-hand taste of the food and drink industry - the UK's largest manufacturing sector.

Cargill signed up to work with the Food and Drink Federation (FDF) and MyKindaCrowd to deliver an exclusive site visit with practical challenges for the Year 12 students with A-Level STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) subjects. The challenges are designed around real problems that have been encountered, and resolved, on the plant, and will give the students the opportunity to put their theoretical knowledge to the test in a manufacturing environment.

Angela Colesill, Director of Employment & Skills at FDF, said: “The skills agenda is a top priority for our industry and we are proud that our members continue to support careers initiatives such as the MyKindaCrowd engineering visits to ensure a solid succession plan for employment in our sector.

“At the heart of this collaboration is the aim to raise awareness for the industry-backed MEng Food Engineering degree at Sheffield Hallam University as well as FDF's Women into STEM pledge as part of the YourLife campaign, which encourages women to pursue science or engineering careers in food and drink.“

Students took away an understanding of how they can use their STEM subjects towards an exciting career in food and drink manufacturing and give students the chance to network with employees at Cargill.

Paul Kingston, General Manager of Cargill's starches and sweeteners plant in Manchester said: “We are proud to be part of this invaluable initiative, promoting careers in food engineering, a sector which we know is particularly impacted by the shortage of engineers in the employment market. The additional goal of encouraging females to consider careers in engineering is also recognition of the opportunities that now exist for them within food manufacturing.“

The MyKindaCrowd programme is an exceptional opportunity for young students to get the inside track of engineering within food and drink and even the chance to 'win a work experience prize' at each of the challenge days. In turn, the FDF member companies will help the students to develop work skills and will benefit by establishing links with talented future recruits that offer fresh ideas and solutions.

Photography available here

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. MyKindaCrowd has embarked on a global mission: to connect young people with the world of work and enhance their future employability. Companies set challenges; young people respond with ideas; and get rewarded with work experience.
3. Cargill provides food, agriculture, financial and industrial products and services to the world. Together with farmers, customers, governments and communities, we help people thrive by applying our insights and nearly 150 years of experience. We have 145,000 employees in 67 countries who are committed to feeding the world in a responsible way, reducing environmental impact and improving the communities where we live and work. For more information, visit Cargill.com and our News Center.
4. The MEng Food Engineering course 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 - www.foodengineer.co.uk
5. Your Life Stem pledge - In May 2014, the government set out national ambitions for greater participation in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) especially amongst women. FDF and our members support the new campaign called 'Your Life' by creating our own pledge to attract women into STEM careers in our industry.

About MyKindaCrowd

1. MyKindaCrowd was established in 2011 to transform the way young people connect with the world of work. The social enterprise company works with 4500 schools and over 90% of universities in the UK, providing online industry 'Challenges', physical workshops, work-experiences, and jobs completely free.
2. Companies set real-life online industry challenges, supported by face-to-face workshops attended by company employees. Students show-case their skills and respond to the challenges. Good responses get rewarded with work-experiences.
3. MyKindaCrowd has set up and ran challenges for entrepreneurs, government organisations, charities and some of the UK's leading brands which have led to thousands of industry work experiences for students with companies including BT, Cisco, Lloyds, Accenture, KPMG, Tesco, NCS and many more.
4. It has won the UK's most prestigious Social Enterprise awards for connecting with diverse groups of young people.

For More information, please contact:

FDF FDF press office on 020 7420 7118/40 pressoffice@fdf.org.uk

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