Sense of taste: Careers in food and drink manufacturing

The food and drink sector suffers perhaps more than most from misconceptions about manufacturing. It’s about as far as it’s possible to get from the still-persisting image of men with oily spanners: food manufacture is a high-tech process industry, conducted in spotlessly clean conditions and with a high level of automation and computer control.

The biggest manufacturing sector, accounting for 15 per cent of UK manufacturing output, it employs around 400,000 people with as many as 1.2 million in ancillary services. It needs graduate food scientists and technologists, and engineers skilled in process engineering and automation, as well as students of a younger age with a potential interest in these fields. Yet it struggles to get the attention of engineering graduates.

This is surprising for an industry with a high level of computer-controlled processes and a focus on lean manufacturing and improving efficiency, all of which are needed to respond to fast-changing trends.