The Food and Drink Federation (FDF) has teamed up with the sector skills council Improve and the National Skills Academy for Food & Drink (NSAFD) to invite universities to compete to partner the industry in developing the new engineering degree.
The chosen university will become the country’s centre of excellence for food and drink engineering. It will help to promote the discipline as a profession with the same career appeal as aerospace, automotive or energy engineering.
Without a specialist degree in food and drink engineering, engineering graduate recruits take considerable time to adapt to the industry’s requirements, said the FDF.
Specialist areas challenging general engineering graduates include: hygiene, food and drink supply chain integration, sustainability, lean processes and design for maintenance.
New breed
“The new food and drink engineering degree course will produce a ‘new breed’ of specialist food and drink engineers who are not only conversant with leading edge food and drink manufacturing technology but also the scientific aspects of food and drink production,” according to an FDF statement.
Angela Coleshill, the FDF’s human resources director, said: “We’re looking to select one university to work with … to develop a degree that supports our Graduate Ambition programme of attracting top class young talent qualified to meet the specific needs of our sector.”
Jack Matthews, Improve chief executive, added: “We’re looking for a university partner that understands the contribution of high-level engineering knowledge to modern food and drink manufacturing and shares our vision of promoting food and drink engineering as both a discipline and a profession in its own right.”
Matthews said a similar centre of educational excellence had been created already for the UK’s dairy sector thanks to the efforts of Improve, the National Skills Academy for Food & Drink and leading industry players.
Recession-resistant
Justine Fosh, of the NSAFD, said: “Recession has taken the shine off many other industries but food and drink manufacturing remains a recession-resistant growth industry offering good graduate starting salaries, job security, career progression and the prospect of working for some of Britain’s best known companies and most famous and familiar consumer brands.
“At a time of rising tuition fees and employment uncertainly, we’re looking to make the most of firm food industry commitment to support food and drink engineering undergraduates … through a combination of internships, work placements and full-time employment guarantees.”
Higher Education representatives have been invited to a briefing on the project at the Department of Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) in London on April 19. For more details, click here.
The project is supported by leading industry firms such as Nestlé, Mars and Kraft Foods.