from Allen Townsend, sales and marketing director, The Seafood Company/Anchor Seafoods/Cromer Crab Co
Sir; I read with interest Professor Blanchfield’s letter ‘This mad scientist advert is offensive’ (The Grocer, July 10, p23). While he is stalwartly defending his profession against the latest marketing initiative by Yeo Valley (which, incidentally, I have not seen) he raises an even more important issue.
The industry is short of good quality people, particularly technical people, whether they be technologists or food scientists. Just ask anyone currently trying to recruit quality technical or development personnel. I suspect we shall be even shorter in the future.
We have a problem as an industry in that we cannot attract enough youngsters into our profession. The government continues down its route of trying to get as many youngsters as possible on useless courses that many will drop out of because they can’t afford the fees. The students have little idea where their courses will lead them, while applications for food-based courses are at an all time low. Even Reading University, one of the centres of excellence for food science and technology, has had a steady decline in applicants, while courses such as media studies are oversubscribed by up to three times. This is madness. Most graduates leaving a food science/ technology course can walk into a job. Perhaps, like myself, they will change direction at some stage but many students will leave other courses with poor job prospects and a big loan to repay.
We work in a fabulous industry with great prospects for long-term careers, international travel and job satisfaction and we do ourselves and our industry a real disservice by not being able to communicate it to today’s school leavers.
The caricature of the mad food scientist is probably the only time they have heard the words ‘food scientist’ mentioned - they don’t know the management opportunities in our industry. So come on colleagues, despite offering a few industrial training courses, we are failing because we are not providing succession.
Those of us in the industry who can do something, (perhaps Yeo Valley could take the initiative) need to get the message across to the school leavers and those about to chose GCSE subjects that there is a great industry waiting for them. Food science/technology is a gateway to many careers: technical, development, general management, buying, retailing. And with much of our food produced overseas many of our companies are international.
I know courses are on offer at Reading, Leeds and Nottingham. I’m sure they would love to hear if you can offer your support through student sponsorship or industrial placements.
Sir; I read with interest Professor Blanchfield’s letter ‘This mad scientist advert is offensive’ (The Grocer, July 10, p23). While he is stalwartly defending his profession against the latest marketing initiative by Yeo Valley (which, incidentally, I have not seen) he raises an even more important issue.
The industry is short of good quality people, particularly technical people, whether they be technologists or food scientists. Just ask anyone currently trying to recruit quality technical or development personnel. I suspect we shall be even shorter in the future.
We have a problem as an industry in that we cannot attract enough youngsters into our profession. The government continues down its route of trying to get as many youngsters as possible on useless courses that many will drop out of because they can’t afford the fees. The students have little idea where their courses will lead them, while applications for food-based courses are at an all time low. Even Reading University, one of the centres of excellence for food science and technology, has had a steady decline in applicants, while courses such as media studies are oversubscribed by up to three times. This is madness. Most graduates leaving a food science/ technology course can walk into a job. Perhaps, like myself, they will change direction at some stage but many students will leave other courses with poor job prospects and a big loan to repay.
We work in a fabulous industry with great prospects for long-term careers, international travel and job satisfaction and we do ourselves and our industry a real disservice by not being able to communicate it to today’s school leavers.
The caricature of the mad food scientist is probably the only time they have heard the words ‘food scientist’ mentioned - they don’t know the management opportunities in our industry. So come on colleagues, despite offering a few industrial training courses, we are failing because we are not providing succession.
Those of us in the industry who can do something, (perhaps Yeo Valley could take the initiative) need to get the message across to the school leavers and those about to chose GCSE subjects that there is a great industry waiting for them. Food science/technology is a gateway to many careers: technical, development, general management, buying, retailing. And with much of our food produced overseas many of our companies are international.
I know courses are on offer at Reading, Leeds and Nottingham. I’m sure they would love to hear if you can offer your support through student sponsorship or industrial placements.
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