Fantastic news for Wellingborough!
The UK’s first supermarket bakery college has been created in partnership with flour supplier, Whitworth, and is based on site at one of Whitworth’s bakeries in Wellingborough.
Justin King, chief executive of Sainsbury’s and president of the IGD will use his speech at the IGD Food & Grocery Industry Skills & Employment Summit to announce the new Wellingborough based College. Whilst highlighting the lack of recognition the grocery industry receives as a source of economic growth and a provider of skills and employment.
The new facility will speed colleagues through NVQ training in half the time it currently takes, reducing the time from 12 months to 6 months, meaning qualified bakers will be sent into stores more quickly. College training will be available to everyone who works in the bakery, not just apprentices.
The creation of the college will help get more qualified bakers into the Sainsbury's stores more quickly, which will improve the quality of their offer at the same time as providing colleagues with the skills they need to carve out a long and rewarding career in retail.
The total food chain already employs 3.6 million people – that’s one job in every seven in the UK. Food and grocery represents almost half of all retail sales and food is the biggest manufacturing sector.
