Food and Drink Skills Academy gets green light

The National Skills Academy for Food and Drink Manufacturing will open in April after the government finally gave it the go-ahead.

The announcement marks the culmination of over two years of research, planning and development by employers, under the co-ordination of food and drink sector skills council Improve.

It is forecast that the £4.4M academy will deliver new skills to at least 28,000 people during its first four years.

“This is a major new landmark in the training provision for food and drink manufacturers,” said Improve chairman Paul Wilkinson. “The National Skills Academy has been driven by employers’ needs, has been designed by employers, and will be run by employers.”

Most training programmes will be delivered through a network of 35 approved academy training centres, each designated by its particular specialist area of expertise.

The first five are: Grimsby Institute of Further and Higher Education (fish processing); University of Lincoln Holbeach Campus (chilled ready meals); Poultec Training, Dereham in Norfolk (meat and poultry); Reaseheath College in Nantwich (dairy); and Johnson Diversey in Northampton (food hygiene).

The £4.4M cost is being funded part by government and part by employers, which have already contributed £1.4M in cash and a further £1M in rent waivers. Employers will need to add a further £1M in cash sponsorship to match the government’s contribution. The aim is for the academy to eventually become self-financing.

There will be a network of 200 registered training providers, which will become accredited to deliver academy courses anywhere in the UK, as well as an online study classroom via the Academy’s website.

The first entirely new programme to be offered as soon as the academy opens its doors is Production Management - a Lean Approach. This has been designed specifically for the academy, and will deliver job-specific learning units for bakery, meat and poultry, sea-fish processing, or general food manufacturing. It has been pitched at NVQ levels 2 and 3.

For more information go to the Improve website​