The food and drink industry is one of the largest manufacturing sectors and yet, all over the world, companies struggle to attract the best and brightest to consider careers in the industry. In the UK they are trying a new approach by catching them while they are young.

The UK food and drink industry has been selected as one of the key sectors to participate in ‘See Inside Manufacturing’ - The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) flagship scheme to get factories to open their doors and inspire school children to consider careers in manufacturing.

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Engineering group Rolls-Royce has unveiled a deal which should secure 300 highly-skilled nuclear industry jobs at a new factory in South Yorkshire.

The factory will produce components for the first new nuclear plant at Hinkley Point in Somerset, as part of a £400m deal with French energy giant Areva.

The high-tech parts will be used inside the nuclear reactor.

Manufacturing will take place at a factory which Rolls-Royce hopes to open in Rotherham late next year.

Outline planning permission for the site at Catcliffe has already been given by Rotherham council.

If it gets the final go-ahead Rolls-Royce hopes building work on the facility will start in the second half of this year.

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While 55% of firms do not now outsource upkeep and item management, they designed to investigate a intensity over a subsequent year. A orator told FoodManufacture.co.uk:

“Firms were picking adult business and looking to move in outsourced upkeep workers on a short-term as cover.”

Food and splash manufacturers accounted for about 15% of firms enclosed in a survey, he added.

Nearly half (41%) of firms reported that a stream mercantile meridian had not forced them to postpone vital designed investments in new equipment.

False economy

Nearly 8 in 10 upkeep and engineering managers pronounced they approaching their bill to boost or sojourn a same this year. Matt Benyon, md of EasyFairs UK and Ireland, said: “Businesses are still anticipating it tough, though many realize that slicing behind on upkeep budgets is fake economy.”

More than a third (36%) of firms surveyed pronounced they designed to use their upkeep bill to urge plant capability by augmenting appurtenance efficiency.

Over two-thirds (70%) of respondents pronounced their firm’s directors judged capability to be a categorical magnitude of plant performance. That was followed by downtime (61%) and using costs (42%).

Reflecting those priorities, 55% of firms reported that that their budgets would be spent on predictive upkeep record to “extend plant longevity, urge potency and equivocate catastrophic, dear plant failures”, said the spokesman.

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(RTTNews.com) - Underpinned by transport equipment and food industries, British manufacturing output expanded more-than-expected in December, logging the biggest growth since May. Output figures suggest that the economy remains on the track to recovery.

Manufacturing output grew 1 percent, rebounding from November’s 0.1 percent fall, data from the Office for National Statistics showed Thursday. The increase exceeded the 0.2 percent rise forecast by economists.

As manufacturing output has increased after easing for straight few months, question remains as to whether the sector can sustain its improved performance around the turn of the year, said Howard Archer, chief UK economist at IHS Global Insight.

Industrial production grew 0.5 percent month-on-month in December, offsetting last month’s 0.5 percent decrease. Economists had expected only 0.2 percent growth.

The largest contributors to the month-on-month increase in manufacturing output were the production of transport equipment industries, followed by the manufacture of food, beverages and tobacco industries.

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Jenrick IT has conducted research throughout 2011 on employees who have approached our company requesting assistance with finding a new permanent or contract IT job opportunity.

Our consultant team took the opportunity to ask these individuals what the key reasons were as to why they wish to leave their current employer.

Here were the top 5 reasons that they stated they wished to leave their current organisation / seek a new organisation:

main reasons why people leave organisations

• Company Bureaucracy - Having little or no say in how the department or company structure/rules are set. Lack of empowerment.
• Stagnated - Top IT talent needs to be stimulated. When projects are mundane or move into the area of BAU, this fails to ignite passions and leads to a desire to exit. Direclty linked to lack of growth.
• Poor Structured Reviews - Managers can often be busy and find conducting reviews a ‘necessary evil’. Employee feedback to Jenrick is that they desire to be given quality time and be made to feel that their work / role is valued within the organisation.
• No Shared Vision - Employees like to ‘buy’ into the culture. Jenrick’s research indicates that employees who are unaware of / do not share the company’s vision are more likely to leave.
• Multiple Reports - The research indicates that employees who report to more than one line manager become disenchanted and de-motivated, due to lack of clear direction and the potential for conflicting priorities. A clear line of communication linked to clear priorities is essential.

Applying this knowledge within your own organisation:

If you are seeking to retain your top talent and possibly expand your team in 2012 our advice is to ensure you consider all of the above points and assess if you believe they impact your organisation. (more…)

Weetabix is investing £16M in UK processing this year and rolling out a lean production programme across its factories after trialling it at Burton Latimer in Northamptonshire.

“We will spend £16M of collateral in 2012,”

said conduct of production Mike Parsons.

“What we are looking to do is reinstate processes opposite a whole Weetabix estate.”

Parsons assimilated 18 months ago from Heinz, carrying been concerned in a continual alleviation (CI) roll-out. He hired gaunt consultancy Lauras International to analyse opening and advise on areas during Weetabix that could be enhanced. The formula of this helped a organisation win a Company of a Year pretension during Food Manufacture’s 2011 Food Manufacturing Excellence Awards.

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Sophie Paterson,  Senior Recruitment Consultant at Jenrick Commercial successfully completed the very gruelling course, otherwise known as the Grim8 Night Terror Challenge on the evening of Saturday 4th February (in the snow!!), raising £550 for Macmillan Cancer Support.

Here is Sophie’s account of her experience of the Grim8 Night Terror Run:

So we arrived in Aldershot at about 5.00pm on Saturday, the snow heavens had all ready opened and it was coming down thick and fast (slightly horizontal too).  It was freezing, but we made it onto the start line with only a little bit of moaning!

On the start line they informed us they had cut out the deep water parts because they were frozen solid and the health and safety risk was apparently too high!  As they announced this at the start line it was met with a massive BOO from the crowd.  I have to say despite the snow and how cold I was, I was quite disappointed we weren’t going through the deep water parts…

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Corby has received its second major jobs boost in a week with the news that at least 40 positions are being created at a £2million factory site.

New chilled pastry company Bakeaway Ltd is opening today at the old Parker’s Fine Foods site in Baird Road, on the Willowbrook East industrial estate.

The company already has a contract to supply the Sainsbury’s chilled pastry range and says there is a “promise of many more” jobs to come.

Negotiations are already under way to forge links to the catering and business sections at Tresham College

It follows an announcement on Monday from the Bradford-based firm Advanced Supply Chain which is about to create 80 jobs at a warehouse in Eismann Way, Corby.

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Supermarket chain Morrisons, the only major multiple retailer to operate its own meat processing factories, has struck a deal to acquire a 9,755m² meat processing facility in Winsford, Cheshire from Vion UK.

The site is a fresh pork and lamb retail packing plant which Morrisons said has the capacity to expand into beef and mince products and increase its existing production. This work was previously carried out at a Morrisons-owned site in Bradford and by third party suppliers.

Morrisons said the jobs of all 300-plus staff in Winsford would be safeguarded and that there is potential to increase the size of the workforce as the business grows. The retailer said the acquisition will give it greater capacity as it continues to expand, and more control over the quality of meat products sold in its stores.

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Norfolk, Buckinghamshire and Cornwall are top hotspots for manufacturing growth with all three counties adding over 1,000 factory jobs since 2006 according to the GMB.

Twenty seven UK regions recorded a boom in manufacturing employment the GMB analysis of an ONS population survey showed.

Star English performers included counties more associated with tourism than manufacturing such as Bournemouth and Greenwich. (more…)