UK fresh produce companies face greater competition for the best young talent than ever before says Louise Beales of recruitment specialist Tailor Made Resources.
“These are watershed years in many ways,” she explains. “Competition between suppliers within the UK and from outside sources is higher than ever and all fresh produce companies need to ensure they have the best people they can find.
“The entire industry needs to invest more in recruitment, development and personnel management if it is to attract and keep the best players in the future.”
Beales believes with the trends of company rationalisation, automation and a general decline in the numbers working in horticulture, the industry is in danger of regarding quality of key people as second to technological development and cost management.
“One of the biggest problems facing fresh produce businesses is a shortage of top people entering the industry and to a certain degree we must accept this is self-inflicted,” she says.
“If the industry believes good people are no longer important then the image we present to the outside world and anybody interested in horticulture will be wholly unappealing as a career choice for the next generation.”
In the commercial horticulture sector there are 12,800 businesses employing 69,800 people and it is predicted that there will be an increase of around 16,100 in the numbers employed between 2001 and 2006. The average age of people in horticulture is definitely rising according to Redfox Executive selection consultant David Macaulay: “There are some excellent senior managers in the industry but the real challenge is finding good graduates to bring into the sector.”
Macaulay says the reasons for the decline in people entering the sector are twofold. Firstly the general decline in the number of people studying agricultural or horticultural degrees affects the number of young people interested in the industry. Instead they are being attracted into other fashionable and high growth industries.
The second factor is the pressure that retailers are putting suppliers under and they lack the confidence to add to the payroll when future business is uncertain. “Likewise, they don’t have time to take a perceived risk by investing in an individual who has a year or less experience. They are looking to buy knowledge - people who can understand the market and what is needed from the start. This is the state of the industry we are dealing with at the moment,” he says.
The irony, says Beales, is that in the meantime other food sectors are doing much to improve their image and convey to potential employees that they offer exciting work in a progressive environment with real career prospects.
“Fresh produce is a uniquely challenging and exciting area. Where else do you get the same combination of marketing, innovation, competition, environmental issues and commercial pace? But not everybody sees it that way.”
The implications of category management to the industry are a good illustration of this. She says: “Technical excellence, customer service and price competitiveness are no longer enough to get to the top of the listings. Retailers increasingly want to deal with suppliers who have a strategic view of the fresh food business and with ideas on how they can move the category on, and ultimately this is a people issue.”
Findings from a Lantra National Training Organisation survey, Skills Foresight 2001 - a dialogue for action, state that employment in the land-based sector accounts for 3.4 per cent of the UK’s workforce and this number was expected to increase significantly by 2006.
The research also identified the skills that the industry requires in the future to include a high level of technical skills, a higher level of business and management skills, better information communication technology, and better key and generic skills such as communication, initiative and customer care.
However 21 per cent of land-based businesses surveyed by Lantra reported difficulties with recruitment because of a lack of applicants with required qualifications or work experience. In response Beales says human resource management needs to be taken much more seriously than it is at the moment.
Industry partnership manager for Lantra, Sally Beel, agrees. “The new challenge for businesses is to understand the labour market, the current industry structure and improve recruitment and retention of people. The sector needs to look at other ways of marketing itself, such as creating better links with schools, to attract people to the sector, such as career changers, who are looking for opportunities in a sector with less stress,” she says.
“In addition there has been an increased use and reliance on migrant labour in the past few years and a percentage of this workforce naturally stay in the UK and progress to become supervisors. This trend is definitely one to keep an eye on as it will grow. In turn, language skills, managing and technical and pest management skills will be more in demand.”
According to Macaulay there are currently more jobs available than candidates to fill them, but there is a discrepancy between the demands being made by the employers and potential employees. “These days graduates are likely to change their jobs up to 10 times and are a lot choosier, holding out for an ideal job which pays a starting wage of £18,000. The challenge for employers is to understand what is driving young people and how to retain them. This includes investment in personal development, a good work/life balance with flexible working hours - these can be used to attract the best candidates.”
However suppliers are demanding more skills from prospective employees, such as an in-depth knowledge of a product, fluent languages and good relationships with specific retailers. He says: “Organisations such as the Management Development Scheme are exposing graduates to different areas in the supply chain. The industry needs to recognise that colleges such as Harper Adams and Wye are not going to be their only source of people. Students from other courses can be just as valuable even if they’ve never driven a tractor.”
One thing the sector has in its favour is that once people are involved in fresh produce they remain in the sector says Macaulay. “People like the nature of the industry - it is people-focused and social, and provides a lot of opportunity to gain experience with a very fast moving industry.” However, this sentiment is not shared with the majority of young candidates. “Graduates perceive the retail sector as very dynamic, but there are advantages to working in the supply base, and suppliers need to proactively market themselves to be recognised by the best candidates.”
Beel supports this view and says barriers stopping younger candidates entering the sector include a lack of sector understanding and its negative image. She says: “Graduates and school leavers need to be made aware of the full opportunities and recognise the progressional opportunities. This also includes changing the views of parents who also carry these opinions. They all need to be educated on the positives of the sector, including wages, and learn about the changing sector profile with more career changers who are looking for opportunities in a sector with less stress. Instead these should be presented as positives but many graduates don’t know where to get right information.”
Head of the careers centre at Writtle College, Phil McCash, believes that current students are seeing the opportunities the sector presents them. “Recent graduates leaving with a horticulture degree have been offered a range of roles in the fresh produce chain, such as a senior technician at G’s Marketing, a trainee agronomist and a national account executive at Zwetsloots.”
He adds: “The course has adapted to the industry as it evolved and now offers students several career development modules, such as organic production and new post harvest techniques.”
Head of landscape management at the college, John Cullum, says there are 220 students now enrolled in the undergraduate commercial horticulture course. “There has been an increased interest for the course and we have introduced new modules such as fresh material management and post harvest physiology. The student profile is also changing with more career changers and international students. Of the 220 students, 15 per cent are international students and 30-40 per cent career changers.
“In the last four to six years there has been a big increase in mature age students with ex-City workers, teachers and midwives enrolling in the course. They make excellent students, are fully committed and tend to focus on management roles,” says Cullum.
“The sector needs to learn to recognise the benefits of taking on students who have knowledge from previous work experience and who are interested and committed to the sector,” Cullum continues.
“However there are barriers that still exist to attract new people, such as the negative image the commercial sector has suffered from recent bad publicity regarding pesticides and genetic modified crops. We need to send out the right signals to today’s generation that we are a proactive sector and highlight there are well paid jobs in the supply chain.”
Having recently joined Harper Adams College as a senior lecturer in fresh produce and horticulture after working as a salads technical specialist at Marks & Spencer, Jim Monaghan is very optimistic about the revival of the sector. “The sector is looking for young, dynamic switched on employees. Last year 18 students chose the fresh produce production module after a work placement with retailers and business,” he says.
In September 2005 a new degree in Fresh Produce Management will be introduced as educational establishments and industry have recognised a rise in demand again from students wanting to specialise in the field.
“Many students are unaware that there are fresh produce specific courses now available. The aim of the new course at Harper Adams is to teach the relevant skills to place graduates straight into the industry, from account managers and crop growers to technicians and buyers,” says Monaghan.
“The course aims to give students pre-industry knowledge for horticulture by shortening the route to enter the sector and focusing on field crops such as salads, vegetables and soft fruit. Along with technical knowledge, the importance of European issues, international economics and language skills such as French and Spanish will be taught,” he adds. “For example the expansion of the EU has brought on changes to the labour force and highlighted again the cultural differences. Another important difference is to understand the differences between governmental and retailer regulations which are not always in alignment including compliance and quality assurance, all important issues students need to be aware of,” he says.
“Most importantly students need to realise the importance of imports in the UK sector, especially since fresh produce production is under pressure but still needs to arrive on supermarket shelves. In the medium term we want to produce the best UK graduates and place them in the supply chain, but we need to entice young people and raise the profile of this traditional sector through better marketing and careers advice.”
As a divisional director with market research company Promar International, John Giles is exposed to the global horticulture sector. He says in the UK young talented people have grown up in an environment where the previous generation in the fresh produce sector has not always been positive about the industry.
“They only hear about the doom and gloom and have not been told about the positives and innovations. As a global sector, fresh produce is inspirational. For example, in the US sector, trade associations attract talented young people into the business offering them the opportunity to work in a fast moving business with travel opportunities. However UK trade associations have not developed in the same manner and have a different mind set,” he says.
He adds that traditionally, the UK fresh produce sector tends to prioritise people with good technical skills over good business skills, which again is different abroad. He says: “Employees in fresh produce have developed various skills to supply the supermarkets, but they have been talked down.
“This doesn’t help to attract young people. The supply chain and distribution network in this sector are advanced - a successful category manager who can supply a supermarket with fruit and veg constantly requires great skill which should be seen as a benchmark for many other industries. However this ability to multiskill is not properly promoted.”
Giles says the industry has changed in the last two decades but further training is still required to broaden awareness and technical skills taught in order to produce the right calibre of people. “The sector needs to try and capture young people at the secondary school level, rather than them being turned off too early when it could be very different,” he says.
At Hadlow College in Kent the number of students enrolled in the commercial horticulture degree increased by 20 per cent in 2004, and numbers for this year’s intake are likely to rise by a further 20 per cent, says skills advisor Sarah Calcutt. “There has been a shift in the industry and new crop technologies have been introduced which attracts more people again to the sector. Five years ago the course almost disappeared as numbers dropped,” she says.
“However we have built good relationships with the industry over the years which lobbied to keep the course alive. Today the course has changed to reflect the sector and new modules are offered for a variety of subjects.”
Calcutt attributes the rise in course interest to improved marketing to prospective students, but also to the increasing numbers of students who originally came to the UK as part of the SAWS schemes - after a nine month placement with growers enrol in the undergraduate course. As mentioned by other colleges, the average age of undergraduate students has risen to 25 because many students now come to the course with previous work experience.
Calcutt adds: “We are more responsive to the changes in industry now. As part of the skills advisory service, we visit farms and rural businesses to find the best training solutions. And the industry is also backing sector specific skills training again. The Worshipful Company of Fruiterers has helped develop a Centre of Excellence at the college which will concentrate on offering short courses to meet industry training needs.
“This will include management qualifications, international marketing and logistics, all taught using industry case studies.”
So it seems the industry needs the initiative to present horticulture in a more positive way. Beales says: “The fresh produce industry must realise it is in direct competition with other sectors of the food industry, and industry at large, to attract young or new people and management skills into their businesses. Without top skills, it is difficult to see how it can compete with other countries in the future.”
She says about 50 pure horticultural graduates enter the industry each year but the best marketing, financial and logistics skills actually exist outside the horticultural sector.
“The industry has to actively seek new approaches and bring in new skills such as vision, planning, listening, teamwork, human relations, leadership and motivation.
“But above all else, a return to a culture that respects the critical role of people in the industry must be made,” she says. “This can only be achieved if there is an environment that encourages good younger people to the sector in the first place and provides them with opportunities and resources to make it happen.”
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