Pay peanuts: get monkeys

The old adage 'Pay peanuts: get monkeys' does not necessarily follow in the food industry. Here it is quite likely 'Pay big money: get monkey'.

The truth is that quality students are not choosing the food industry or engineering for tertiary study. A quick look at this year’s NSW/ACT cut-off marks for food engineering courses reveals some pretty sad facts. Vacancies in engineering courses in all but the top couple of universities, even when the cut-off marks are low; very few food specific courses except for nutrition; in many cases it is harder to get into exercise and leisure courses than engineering or science.

If top students are not choosing to study food engineering the industry cannot expect to hire top graduates. So, what do we do?

We can offer scholarships that encourage top students to take up appropriate courses. This, however, is a fairly expensive option for an individual company unless it can guarantee the student will stay with the company for a long time after graduation. Bearing in mind that Gen Y graduates move from job to job to secure their career path eschewing long-term company loyalty, a scholarship investment for a single company is unlikely to show return on investment.

The whole food industry is in the one boat on this — everyone needs good-quality food technologists and engineers. So is it time for the industry as a whole to look at some solutions? More moderate investments by lots of companies may create a pool of potential employees that strengthens the whole industry.

This cooperative approach need not be limited to scholarships. Could we offer students a 'Year in Industry' mid-way through their degrees so that they become interested in the food industry as a career goal? What about holiday employment that exposes them to the industry?

In many ways we need to go back further in the education system — to secondary schools. As an industry, should we be lobbying curriculum development to include subject or topics that expose students to the food industry? My children’s accounts of studying food technology at high school all include tales of mad teachers with a fetish for swirling the hot water in the sink to wash up and certainly did not inspire them to ever consider the food industry as a career choice.

The food industry as a whole needs to work together with a common goal — more and better people coming into the industry. As food manufacturing is one of Australia’s main manufacturing industries, this isn’t an unreasonable goal on a national level. So let’s see what we can do. If you have any genius ideas (or even semi-genius ideas) please send me an email.