Food careers to whet the appetite

Engineering and technology students from six universities took up an invitation to visit Birmingham University in March. They met representatives from very different areas within the food industry to explore the plethora of potential careers it offers and were treated to a free buffet dinner and various goodies from Cadbury’s and Weetabix.

Students listened to presentations on the developments under way to make the industry as competitive as ever. The industry looks to attract an increasing number of graduates every year and has many varied career opportunities to offer — from cutting-edge technology to quality assurance. Each of the four speakers illustrated a place for science and engineering graduates across the food industry.

Industry needs graduates
Paul Hebblethwaite of Cadbury Schweppes gave an overview of the market in ‘The business dynamics of the food industry’, focusing on the size of the industry and its international reach. He highlighted the industry’s need for graduates and demonstrated that a technical route in can lead to an ever-widening variety of opportunities in the future.

Differing sizes of business offer the opportunity for people to gain a breadth of varying experience and responsibility. Such companies cover four main sectors: food production, processing and manufacturing, wholesale and retail. Everyone must eat and today the market is truly global with an increasing demand for new products and new methods of getting food to market.

Jon Whiteman from Crown, Cork & Seal gave an account of his first two years in the industry. Working for one of the UK’s foremost packaging producers, he illustrated all aspects that involve graduates, showing that it is very far from being a boring or mundane career move. Jon’s role is to improve functionality while lowering production costs. This involves working closely with customers and colleagues from very different graduate backgrounds across all disciplines and the whole supply chain.

Simon Branch of RHM Technology talked on the range of opportunities for technical, specialist and generalist graduates in a multi-division company. Quality assurance and new product development roles may yield the opportunity to become technical managers and then technical directors. The industry needs food scientists and engineers but various attributes are also required: the ability to delegate, negotiate, plan, analyse, communicate and be diplomatic are all important characteristic. But it does not end there – if you have a head for figures, an eye for detail, a passion of good food and thick skin then you will go even further.

When RHM Technology asked Simon what he wanted to do in his career, and were given the answer ‘to invent computer games’, they knew they had a candidate with imagination: they helped him realise his dream while realising theirs. They have an employee who writes programmes that are both technical and practical in nature but play like a computer game.

Food can be fun
Adrian Marshall carried on the theme of food being a fun industry to work in. As a self-employed engineer he has a small enterprise working with just one other colleague — his wife. Yet his inventions hold patents across the world; a demonstration of how he is at the forefront of technology and can translate everyday things in the world around us into solutions. He works on high-tech (Marshalling Yard) and low-tech (Ro-Ro Gripper) machines, creating leaps across craft base to develop practical, reliable machinery solving all sizes of problems.
This event was designed to encourage students to consider the food industry after their studies; not only will they benefit from the many opportunities the industry has, but we need to continually bring in new people with fresh ideas.