Mentoring for educators in the agrifood sector and a first-of-its-kind pan-European assessment process for food sector professional education and training programmes are among the features of EIT Food’s Learning Services for Employers initiative.
EIT Food is a food innovation community co-funded by the European Union’s European Institute of Innovation and Technology, with the aim of accelerating innovation to build a future-fit food system that produces healthy and sustainable food for all. It was prompted to take action after consulting more than 1,000 businesses and employers across Europe, finding that most current education and training provision doesn’t meet the needs of the industry and that urgent change is needed to professionalise education across the food system.
Maarten van der Kamp, director of education at EIT Food, said that more than 40 million people are currently employed within the global food system, from production and manufacturing through to retail and hospitality. But the consultation “revealed that most [employers] do not feel adequately prepared to deal with the challenges facing our food system,” he said.
Learning Services, which launched on 18 October, will provide an internationally recognised mark of excellence in professional education for the food sector. It has been co-created with academic and corporate partners including the University of Reading and the Fraunhofer Institute, and in consultation with industrial partners including PepsiCo. It will be underpinned by a new competency framework to help employers identify skills gaps and career development opportunities for employees.
PepsiCo R&D senior manager, Imran Afzal, said: “With unprecedented challenges facing our food system, it’s even more important that our workforce have the knowledge and skills they need to adapt, work safely and drive efficiency.”