The apprentice: Megan Afford
I joined Moy Park as an apprentice in June 2017 and am now a quality assurance (QA) auditor in one of its factories. This involves looking at a wide range of QA topics throughout the factory, ensuring the safety and quality of food produced meets both the customers’ and legal demands. Part of my role involves completing traceability exercises and supporting the factory with a variety of interesting technical aspects.
I am now studying BSc (Hons) Food Science and Technology on the part-time programme at Nottingham Trent University’s Brackenhurst Campus, where I attend week-long blocks that are a mixture of taught theory lectures and practical exercises. The experience at Moy Park gives me great practical insight into what I’m learning.
Moy Park has a strong learning culture and I receive work projects and significant on-the-job training, including relevant food industry training.
I had wanted to go to university, but didn’t know what to study. Knowing the value of experience, I started looking for different options, which led me to Moy Park. I liked the way the programme sounded and the level of knowledge I would gain during the apprenticeship.
The employer: Nicky Taylor
Employing apprentices enables us to build a robust and exciting talent pipeline. Generally, people joining the business as an apprentice bring enthusiasm, fresh thinking and new ideas.
One of the best ways to develop effectively is to learn on the job, in a structured and supported way, so apprentices can add value to a business really quickly and reinforce what they have learned through their formal studies.
Many of Moy Park’s existing apprentices are either working through their study programme or successfully building their careers. We have apprentices across the business, including in agriculture, food, technical, operations and engineering.
We have recently invested significant time in shaping an exciting new offer for apprentices in 2020, enabling us to deliver exceptional learning and development, well beyond the scope of the apprenticeship standard.
We have identified five strategically important areas where apprentices can make a real difference to the firm and, in return, we can offer exciting career development. We are also restructuring internally, with a dedicated resource to support our early careers provision.
