Product Development Apprentice Review

My role involves making up samples in the kitchen, tastings with marketing or the team, calculating nutritionals and costs for recipes, meetings with different teams, researching into new ideas to be explored in the future.

Going to University and then applying my skills in the workplace has made me learn a lot of about the food industry practices. As well as this I have developed in personal development such as communication skills, time management skills, presentation skills and also software skills such as excel.

I really enjoy my programme, the people I work with are extremely supportive in my learning and food is something that I am genuinely passionate about and feel this programme is giving me a huge step forward into my career in the food industry and meeting new connections.

I Think my programme is well structured, when first starting it was quite a lot of information to take in and remember however the University go over things the group has forgotten and not pressured to get everything correct. The modules are evenly spaced out to let enough time to complete each module.

I receive a lot of support from my employer, my line manager encourages me to goes on visits or anything that I/her thinks will be beneficial to my learning. Alongside this my work load is manageable and I get time aside each week to complete my university work as well as 1-1s monthly to talk about anything I am struggling with.

A reasonable amount of support, Drop in sessions are useful to remember what to write and focus on and the feedback from finished modules is thorough and easy to understand in order to improve on your work. However I feel the briefs to the assessments are sometimes quite vague and hard to understand what they are wanting. As well as this the University days sometimes feel rushed trying to cram in a lot of information in a short amount of time which could be extended by adding an extra day.

Currently only a few modules in but my qualification has given me a deeper understanding of the supply chain with key learnings on auditing, specifications and traceability which are all very important in my role and the food industry. As well as this my qualification encourages me to speak to new people in different roles so I can understand more of what they do and helps me form connections for the future.

There are extra activities which involve runs, sports. In our building we have a social team which put together baking competitions etc. As well as this we are encouraged to do volunteering days.

Yes

The company is great, salary is decent, people are very friendly and helpful, holiday entitlement is quickly accepted by manager, all the teams are very welcoming and overall a good company with a good reputation.

My advice would be to be confident in yourself when applying, be passionate what you are going into and there will be people there to help and guide you along the way and its okay if you don't know everything about the role as you will learn a lot.