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Skills chief calls for â??joined-upâ?? approach

The North East’s food and drink sector is suffering from a lack of sufficiently trained staff, industry chiefs have announced this week. The National Skills Academy (NSA) for Food and Drink Manufacturing has released a report stating that the sector’s training provision culture needs to change if businesses are to survive.

Research carried out by the NSA suggests that the majority of the region’s 450 food and drink processing companies only invest in training in order to meet statutory requirements in areas such as food hygiene and health and safety.

But with one in five vacancies in the industry unfilled due to problems attracting adequately trained staff, the report warns that more must be done to encourage employers to invest in training in order to boost productivity.

Justine Fosh, director of the NSA for Food and Drink Manufacturing, said: “We need to break the cycle of low demand fuelling low supply, which characterises food and drink training in the North East. The industry suffers from more skills shortages in this region than anywhere else in the UK, yet this new research shows that two thirds of companies do not formally plan staff training, and three quarters do not allocate any budget to it.

Justine believes that a more joined-up approach to training across the region is part of the solution.

“If training providers were working as part of a formal network dedicated to the food and drink industry rather than in isolation, we could supply training where it is most needed much easier. “This would allow individual providers to expand their own markets and, through the pooling of resources and sharing of expertise, greatly improve their service to customers.”

For more information about the National Skills Academy for Food and Drink Manufacturing, visit www.foodanddrink.nsacademy.co.uk.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .