Food and drink companies are being called on to offer more support for a ground-breaking new university course.

So far 14 businesses, including Nestle, Coca Cola and Mars, have agreed to back the masters degree course in food engineering, set up by the Food & Drink Federation and The National Skills Academy for Food & Drink. (Improve).

But the commitment is only enough to provide work placements for 27 of the first batch of 40 students - due to start the course, at Sheffield Hallam University, in September 2014.

Richard Martin, Nestlé’s chief engineer, who sat on the group developing the degree, said a key part of the four-year Sheffield course, which attracted a small £229,000 injection from government, would involve students spending much of that time working on location with companies, who would benefit from a better trained workforce.

He appealed for more companies to offer work placements, draw up content for the course and sign up to give lectures and offer other support.

“The skills gap in the industry is well recognised,” he added. “We are looking for businesses big or small that can help develop the engineering leaders of the future.”

The FDF, which claims 25% of the food engineering workforce currently comes from abroad, is holding a launch event in Sheffield on Tuesday to drum up further support. It is also planning a marketing campaign in universities and schools to appeal specifically to women recruits.

“We know there has been a very low percentage of females going into engineering but we think the food and drink industry will appeal specifically to them,” added Martin.

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