THE UK’s food and drink manufacturing sector already employs more than 400,000 people, including 117,000 EU nationals: more than the automotive and aerospace industries combined.
The sector’s growing: the FDF (the Food & Drink Federation, which represents the interests of the UK’s food and non-alcoholic drinks manufacturing industry) predicts a national requirement for 140,000 new recruits by 2024 to feed an expanding population of roughly 70 million.
Northamptonshire is at the centre of the industry. Compared with other counties, it hosts twice the national average number of food and drink businesses. With many of these based in and around Corby and Northampton, Northamptonshire-based Moulton College is playing its part in developing the skills and the additional staff that will be needed to meet demand.
The college’s Food and Drink Innovation Centre, which opens this September, will offer a range of new diplomas for post-16 students. These include Level 2 and Level 3 diplomas in Professional Bakery, Level 3 diplomas in Food, Nutrition & Health and Food, Technology and Management, and Level 4 qualifications in Food Technology.
The centre will have several food technology teaching rooms, each with the latest equipment and technology to teach technical and vocational skills, and will feature a commercial food processing unit and a micro-brewery as well.
To offer further support for local food and drink manufacturers – many of which, in Northamptonshire and the East Midlands as a whole, are small to medium-sized enterprises or micro-businesses – Moulton will provide a range of specialist testing and development facilities: something that smaller businesses might not have at their own premises.
For more information about courses and facilities at Moulton College call 01604 491131, email or visit www.moulton.ac.uk.