• Publish Date: Posted almost 7 years ago
• Author:by Daniel Eadington

Why work in food and drink?

​Here at Core Talent, we know where the work is. And when it comes to growing, forward moving & innovative sectors you cannot go wrong with food and drink!Take away how much we love it and put the size of it into pound signs and you know there is a great career ahead of you within the sector and none more so than the engineering department!It’s a near recession-proof industry that’s vital to the UK economyFood and drink are among the most important things for a country to make and, unlike military aircraft or luxury cars, will always be in high demand. As such, jobs in this sector are less susceptible to the whims of government spending or problems in the economy. In fact food and drink, which at 15 per cent of the UK’s production output represents the country’s single largest manufacturing sector, suffered the least in the recent recession and was quickest to return to strength compared to the rest of the industry.It’s in desperate need of good engineersThe government wants the industry to grow 20 per cent by 2020, and tens of thousands of highly skilled new employees will be needed to meet this goal. But even now, companies are struggling to fill one in five food scientist and food engineer vacancies in the UK. ‘The skill gap needs to be filled for the industry to compete, not only at a national level but on a global scale, particularly in the areas of food science and technology,’ according to Kraft Foods, the world’s second largest food company.It offers a varied and challenging careerDevising and improving ways to make food and drinks isn’t about tweaking recipes, although taste is a vital factor in every product. Engineers are needed to work on the smell, texture and environmental implications of a product as well as its packaging, efficiency and safety. With the country facing an obesity crisis, developing ways to make food healthier but still cheap and tasty is imperative for our future.Tracey Foster is the manufacturing director at Walkers Crisps and is responsible for running the brand’s production site. ‘I love it because it is fast-paced, everything is different, we make a lot that goes right to consumers and we’re the number one brand, which I feel gives me a connection to the wider world,’ she says.But there is also big growth among smaller producers, for example with the explosion of micro-breweries and the trend for high-quality organic products. These companies can be found in almost every kind of location, from the centre of big cities to entirely rural environments near the source of the food.