From education to employment

IGD ADDS EDUCATOR HUB AND STEM WORKSHOPS TO FEEDING BRITAIN’S FUTURE PROGRAMME

As IGD celebrates a significant milestone for its charitable initiatives after successfully providing employability skills training to 25,000 students in secondary schools, the training and research charity for the food and grocery industry today announces two new additions to its Feeding Britain’s Future programme – the Educator Hub and STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) workshops.

The Educator Hub is a free online resource for teachers and careers advisors providing information about the food and grocery industry through a variety of case studies, films and classroom activities. The hub includes a range of employability skills content including the skills our industry values and the wide range of jobs available, with a focus on STEM roles. Teachers can download the resources for free, including six 20-minute classroom activities and lesson plans, to use as part of their careers provision.

Aimed at Year 12 science and maths students, Feeding Britain’s Future’s new STEM workshops will help to raise awareness of the wide variety of STEM roles in food and grocery. The workshops feature volunteers from the industry that have a STEM background and are now applying their training in industry roles like engineers, food scientists and technologists.

Joanne Denney-Finch, IGD Chief Executive, said: “IGD’s Feeding Britain’s Future programme is continually innovating and with our new Educator Hub and expanding STEM initiatives we are embarking on an exciting chapter and one that is widely supported across the food and grocery industry, and closely aligned to the government’s new careers strategy.

“Through the Educator Hub we are supporting teachers and careers advisors, who are key gatekeepers of careers advice for students, to talk about the food and grocery industry with confidence. The free teaching resources link the curriculum to the careers available and will help teachers bring the workplace to life for their students.

“In addition, with 48%* of food and grocery recruiting managers saying engineering is the hardest technical area to recruit for, the STEM-focused workshops will help to raise awareness of the food industry with a new pool of potential talent and contribute to narrowing the skills gap our industry faces.”

As well as running 350 employability workshops in schools, Feeding Britain’s Future also includes the school partnerships programme, which drives longer-term engagement between food and grocery companies and their local secondary school. The programme develops long-lasting, tailored relationships between a company’s head office, manufacturing site or store and a local school, helping companies to build strong links with the community and raise their profile as a local employer.

Feeding Britain’s Future, the only programme of its kind, has been running in schools since 2015. Bringing the food and grocery industry together to inspire the next generation, Feeding Britain’s Future provides insight into the variety of roles within the industry, along with training in the skills needed to succeed in the world of work.

As well as implementing these new initiatives, Feeding Britain’s Future will continue to increase in scale and impact and is aiming to train 11,000 students in 2018.

Joanne Denney-Finch concludes: “Reaching the landmark figure of training 25,000 students since 2015 is a huge achievement for Feeding Britain’s Future and especially so as we continue to make a real impact on those taking part – nine out of 10 students feel better prepared for the world of work following a workshop.

“Since 2015, over 5,500 industry professionals from over 200 companies have volunteered at Feeding Britain’s Future workshops, providing students with exciting and inspiring insight into the food and grocery industry. This support is vital to the success of Feeding Britain’s Future and I wish to thank everyone for their continued support.”

Find out more about IGD’s charitable impact and how you can get involved here.

If you are a teacher, you can access the Educator hub here.

About IGD: A training and research charity for the food and grocery industry. Our in-depth understanding of shoppers, retailing and supply chains is supported by our knowledge of broader topics affecting the industry – health, nutrition, sustainability and economics among them. Our reach is global, with experts based in the UK, Singapore and North America. We invest the money we make from selling our expertise into our charitable activities.


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