Recently in Food Manufacturer News Category

Remember how you had to fight your way through plastic to get into that longed for Easter egg when you were a kid? Well Nestlé has now decided to remove the plastic packaging from 20 million of its products in the run-up to Easter in a major move by the Swiss food giant moves to reduce its environmental impact.

Nestlé says the move to replace the plastic casings around Easter eggs with cardboard will eliminate 700 tonnes of waste and bring about a 30% reduction in the weight of packaging for the products affected. The move covers major brands including Kit-Kat and Aero.

Meanwhile supermarket giants Waitrose, along with Lidl, would do well to take a leaf out of Nestle's book after having been exposed as the worst offenders when it comes to product packaging.

Almost 40% of the packaging found in a typical shopping basket at supermarket retailers cannot be easily recycled, said the Local Government Association (LGA), which wants stores to help pay for recycling services and reduce the £1.8bn councils will spend in landfill tax on rubbish sites up to 2011.

Not only does all of this unnecessary packaging cause damage to the environment, it increases the price of our weekly shopping basket.

How can we as a nation overcome this environmental problem? There are golden opportunities out there for packaging professionals to create recyclable products. Should we be putting more pressure on them to come up with innovative ideas?

There may be trouble ahead... or not as the case may be..... all the more reason why leading food and drink manufacturers are coming out fighting and looking for top class managers to see them through a period of uncertainty.

Food Britain backs up the positive vibe, reporting that food exports went up by 9.1% in 2007 to £11.45bn and predicting that this would rise to £12.8bn in 2008. For the first time in five years we have food and drink exports outstripping imports.

The results for 2007 were achieved in spite of the resurgence of foot and mouth disease, which hit meat exports last year. The best growth sectors were meat (worth £864m), followed by dairy at £805m, and the cereals (bulk cereals, breakfast cereals and bakery products) at £1.36bn, and drinks (£4.1bn).

If we are entering difficult times, a career in food and drink is probably a good place to be!

So I can do manufacturing. It's just making widgets isn't it? That's what you would think. So why do so many people find the transition into food manufacturing from a non-food environment so difficult?

From a client perspective it's frustrating finding good people, then training them only for them to leave shortly after. As a candidate it's frustrating that food manufacturers won't entertain people without FMCG experience.

So how do we overcome this impasse? Maybe, employers need to be more open-minded in view of the limited talent pool and use "best manufacturing practices" as criteria rather than FMCG experience. Also, candidates need to be better at translating their skills base into meeting the food manufacturing needs. Perhaps a combination of the two.

Anyone out there wanting to work in food manufacturing who wants to comment?