Food Scientist Shortage

Large companies that can advertise can attract key staff from anywhere in the world, while carrying out in-house training, seem to be coping at present. Small to medium-sized enterprises, however, which make up 90% of the food-processing industry in the UK alone, are finding attracting any food science staff, let alone the right candidate for the job, a challenge.

Despite combing the EU, staff shortages are hitting all areas of food production; quality assurance, product development and analysis. But that has not attracted new recruits to the area of food science where an almost total invisibility in school and university courses has led to a crisis for UK food manufacturing companies where one in four available positions are still unfilled.

This represents a shortage of more than 2,000 qualified professionals in an industry worth £73bn a year, according to figures collected by the UK food and drink sector skills council Improve's CEO Jack Matthews.

The downside to this goes further than reduced productivity, according to Sheffield Hallam University Centre for Food head Keith Proudlove.

He says in many cases companies are only just avoiding major public health disasters as they struggle with a lack of staff in key health and safety positions.

"One company was importing pepper from China that was contaminated with bacterial spores which were contaminating all the products they use it in." Proudlove says. "This is because they did not have the right people on site to deal with [the contamination]."

Staff shortages are hitting all areas of food production from quality assurance to product development and analysis, despite the industry overall enjoying continuing success and demand.

"Food has always been an essential and as a result the food industry has always been quite steady. Individual companies might go up and down but overall the sector has been steady," Proudlove says.

Food for thought?

Numerous factors could have contributed to today's current skills shortage in the food sector. After funding food research in the 1980s, the UK government, for example, reduced its support to the area, signalling a shift away from its perceived importance. And according to Marshall, food companies themselves did little to help the situation, with a number of high-profile negate cases adorning headlines around the world. Top that with stagnant salaries and you have three high-billing reasons to avoid food science.

"We had the BSE crisis, GM crops, salmonella, E coli and [greater awareness among consumers about food] additives. Also, salaries in other areas were very much higher so that people [school leavers] focused on business, computing, marketing etc," Marshall says. "Over the last ten years the food industry has made efforts to catch up so that the big companies pay well. There's always been a demand but as the food industry became to be seen as part of people's problems, fewer wanted to be a part of it."

The result has been that as the industry calls for more food scientists, universities are actually pumping out less. One of the first issues that needs addressing if this situation is to be rectified though is the number of students overall doing science both A-Levels and university. According to analysts, a shortage of science teachers in schools has only come about due to a declining interest in science all over the Western world.

But even when science was big, food science itself was not a particularly visible profession, or a logical next step for someone doing A-Level science. "A lot of people who are doing science for 'A' levels or at university just don't realise that food science offers a career," says Proudlove.

London Metropolitan University course leader for the MSc in food science Richard Marshall says food science has either been seen as either difficult or an area that doesn't lead to a rewarding career. "It is not seen as being very 'sexy'," Marshall says.

How the industry should react

The truth is, food science is for anyone who wants a challenging career, according to Marshall. "It can go in many different directions; for example, different types of food, research, enforcement) can take food scientists around the world several times over, get them involved in helping to feed the world, develop new technologies or work as an independent consultant."

So how can the food industry itself get this message across to encourage new recruits? "There's a bit of sponsorship around but they're not very good really about these things. There's really been a very mixed response [from the industry]," says Proudlove.

"Some companies are teaming up with schools to give children tasters of what the industry does," Marshall says. "And there are new two-year foundation degrees designed to train industry staff and a number of food companies are working with colleges and universities on these."

But overall, Matthews believes employers must become more active in attracting new recruits. "When it comes to the so-called 'milk round' at the end of the calendar year when employers go round the universities canvassing final-year undergraduates, food and drink manufacturers are often conspicuous by their absence.

Improve spends a lot of time telling careers advisers all about the benefits our industry has to offer graduates.

We point out that food scientists can earn up to £60,000 a year, that candidates require skills right at the cutting edge of science and technology and that areas like new product development are uniquely rewarding because of the high degree of creative input they require.

"But all of this is so much more powerful if it comes from employers themselves. Simply by setting aside a day to visit undergraduates to hold workshops on what the industry has to offer, or by forming links with universities to offer students work placements so they can sample it for themselves, all companies, big and small, can take steps towards addressing the high-level skills shortages being faced."

Proudlove says Sheffield Hallam University has also been looking at ways to make food science more attractive by offering 'hybrid' courses which aren't so scientifically oriented and include aspects of marketing, consumer behaviour, food-related law and socio-political aspects of food supply such as food security.

"Progression varies but in larger organisations can be quite fast for people who have the talent. Some of the largest companies, Nestlé for example, have training centres where staff are trained and then could be sent anywhere in the world to run a lab, a factory or develop new products." Proudlove adds that "the person who does science with a food qualification, they're worth their weight in gold because they've got the knowledge of food, the handling of food as well as the scientific underpinnings."