Gavin Williamson, MP for South Staffordshire, recently visited McCain Foods’ factory in Wombourne, where he was given the opportunity to learn more about the company’s engineering apprenticeship programme.
Gavin spoke to the site’s employees and apprentices about the importance of apprenticeships, both at McCain and in the food and drink industry.
Giving insight into the company’s own engineering apprenticeship,apprentices Ryan Moore and Liam Watkins presented their Scalextric project to Gavin, which demonstrated how the technical software in McCain’s factory can deliver unbeatable performance on a slot-racing track.
He also met with Site Manager, Sean O’Leary, to discuss how McCain has benefited from having apprentices in their engineering department since the scheme launched two years ago.
Friday 4th July also marked McCain’s annual assessment day for its next uptake of engineering apprentices – which will see the business take on one more candidate at each of their UK sites in September.
The McCain Engineering Maintenance Technician Apprenticeship Scheme is a four-year programme of college study and valuable on-site engineering experience. Now in its second year, McCain has enrolled 14 apprentices onto the scheme to date, with three currently based in Wombourne and studying at Midland Group Training Services (MGTS).
McCain’s Corporate Affairs Manager, Andra Stan, said: “At McCain, we know that good people are the key ingredient to a successful business. We actively support the development of our employees through learning and development opportunities and our apprenticeship scheme.
“Since the scheme launched in 2012, we’ve committed to running the engineering apprenticeship for 10 years – as a means of developing our own talent.”
McCain is also one of 12 Government Apprenticeship Trailblazers,helping todevelop apprenticeship standards.
“We’re delighted to have support from our local MPs as we look to build on our investment in training young people,” Ms Stan said.
Gavin said: “I greatly enjoyed my tour of McCain Foods in Wombourne. It was wonderful to be able to meet some of the apprentices and scheme leaders working at this excellent local company.
“I hugely applaud everything that McCain is doing to help train young people. It is thanks to schemes such as this that our skills gap is narrowing, our unemployment rate is declining and our manufacturing base is growing.”