Companies have been urged to come forward to commit to the relaunch of IGD’s Feeding Britain’s Future programme aimed at tackling a looming workforce crisis.
The Grocer revealed in February the IGD was bringing back its campaign after warning of huge skills shortages despite growing youth unemployment.
It said today the movement aimed to mobilise the scale and diversity of the food system to equip young people to work and progress in the industry.
The commitments asked for by companies are to:
- Scale meaningful engagement through schools employability workshops. IGD plans to reach over 50,000 students annually from 2027 through employability workshops that build essential skills such as communication, teamwork, and commercial awareness while bringing the food industry to life through real employer insights and interaction.
- Offer modernised work experience. The plan is to move beyond traditional, limited placements to a blended model of work experience, combining virtual experiences, employer-led projects, site visits, and short placements making access more scalable, inclusive, and relevant to today’s workforce.
- Equip the influencers who shape career choices. Companies are asked to provide high-quality, accessible resources via careers platforms for students, teachers, and parents, recognising that awareness of food careers is often low, and that teachers and parents are critical enablers in shaping perceptions and decisions.
The revamp of Feeding Britian’s Future comes with a recent report showing that while the sector employs 4.1 million people, which is one in every eight UK workers, ongoing labour and skills shortages are showing “little sign of improvement”.
The programme previously saw 150 food businesses collaborate with local Jobcentres across the UK to provide 30,000 young people with opportunities to develop skills for work.
In the past 10 years, IGD’s schools programme has also provided ‘skills for work’ training for over 133,000 young people, across a third of all UK secondary schools.
“Nearly a million young people are neither learning nor earning, they are the Gen Z NEETs [not in education, employment or training], and the number is growing,” said Naomi Kissman, social impact director at IGD.
“They face a ‘jobpocalypse’ and the nation faces a lost generation as living costs rise and entry-level employment opportunities dwindle.
“Meanwhile the food industry has its own quiet crisis brewing – workforce shortages and skills gaps mean as an industry that is relied on by everyone, every day, we risk affecting future availability and customer service.
“Addressing these challenges is not only a social imperative, but a commercial one – strengthening the future workforce on which our entire food system depends.”
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