Freya
Technical Higher Level Apprentice
Location:Cornwall
“I began my apprenticeship in September 2021 and it will finish in August 2024. At the end of these three years, I will have a Food Industry Technical Professional degree. The programme will involve me working in three different Samworth Brothers sites around the country – my first placement is in the Cornwall Bakery.
As well as this on-the-job learning, these are also six blocks per year of attending university. So far, in my first placement, I have learned how to adapt and trial recipes on an industrial scale for pies, pasties and sausage rolls, along with how to collect the associated trial information such as bake loss, shelf life and trial reports.
The university blocks teach the underlying technical information to food and the food industry, from supply chain management looking at auditing and raw materials to microbiology and the physics of heating and cooling.
I love the practical hands-on experience of the role and the responsibility I am given. It’s satisfying to be able to follow a product all the way through from handover to launch and understand how the food in our supermarkets is produced
My advice to anyone considering a degree apprenticeship is: go for it! It’s an ideal mix of university life and practical work experience. By the end of my three years, I will have gained knowledge and experience of three diverse roles which will help me determine which direction I want to take my career in the food industry.”