How Cardiff Met and a Placement at Peter's Food Shaped My Career in the Food Industry < CARDIFF MET BLOGS
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How Cardiff Met and a Placement at Peter’s Food Shaped My Career in the Food Industry
July 18, 2024
Abigail Derry
BSc Food Science & Nutrition
Health Sciences
As a massive foodie, I have always envisioned working with food, after studying for my A-levels, I struggled trying to find what my next step was. I knew I wanted to go to university, and work with food, but wasn’t sure if there even was a course which suited my interest until I found out that food science is a degree and one that opens many doors into the food industry!
Though there were only a handful of food science degrees being offered throughout the UK, Cardiff Met stood out to me as top choice to study Food Science & Nutrition for an array of different reasons. I spent many hours looking through each university website and comparing the modules of each Food Science course, the modules offered by Cardiff Met particularly excited me, especially as there was a great mixture of practical and theory within the course as well as having the option of doing a placement. The idea of living in Cardiff also helped my choice, the mix of city-living, beaches and countryside being so close together was perfect for me.
After my second year I had the choice to complete a placement as part of the course, this was something I was interested in however as I decided this later in the year, the process of finding a placement proved to be a struggle. I reached out to lots of different food manufacturers but often didn’t receive a reply. A lot of companies had already advertised, interviewed and filled their placement spaces. Eventually, I secured my placement at Peter’s Food Service in Caerphilly, a renowned pie and savoury pastry manufacturer, thanks to a Cardiff Met lecturer who informed me about an opportunity in their product development department.
My placement was full-time over three months in the summer between second and third year. I thoroughly enjoyed my work there and I was able to experience time in the Development Kitchen, as a Development Technologist and a also in the Technical Department. I did many different tasks such as making pie samples for customers, attending factory trials, completing customer documents and my favourite, attending the daily taste panel!
I found that a lot of what I had already learned at uni really helped me understand tasks and concepts on my placement. In the food manufacturing industry, HACCP is a vital part of keeping the company and their customers safe. As part of working at Peter’s, I had to undertake a level two HACCP course, as I already had an understanding of what this was from lectures at uni, I was able to achieve full marks in the course. I definitely think if I had gone into this without any idea about HACCP I would not have achieved this mark!
During the three months I was able to build and apply what I had learnt during lectures of many different modules, a couple of examples are; the gate process in new product development (NPD) came in useful as I was a part of this process from concept to launch, and my understanding of microbiology also came in handy as I was involved in sending off samples to be tested in the lab. I had a good understanding of microbes commonly present in food  and their effects on people, thanks to what I had learnt in my lectures. After coming back from my placement and starting my final year, I felt that I was able to apply lots of what I learned into my final year of studies which really gave me a head start and a good understanding of how the industry works.
I’m glad I completed a placement as part of the course as it opened my eyes to the different careers there are within the food industry as well as preparing me for future work and given me a further understanding the degree. I would highly recommend doing a placement as part of the course and to start looking early to give you the best chance possible of finding one that suits you.
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