Education, training, and research charity, The Institute of Grocery Distribution (IGD), has announced the relaunch of the Feeding Britain’s Future movement in order to inspire a generation to choose a career in food and drink.
The aim of the scheme is to engage every UK secondary school by 2030 and reverse NEET (Not in Education, Employment or Training) numbers.
The initiative is run in partnership with The Careers & Enterprise Company, the national body for careers education, to deliver high-quality, modern work experience for young people at scale, in collaboration with food businesses across the supply chain.
With youth unemployment surpassing one million, reaching a 12-year high, and following the publication of Alan Milburn’s recent Young People and Work interim report, IGD claimed there was a growing consensus on the need to better support young people into the world of work and prevent a generation from becoming left behind. The impact of early, high-quality careers education and employer engagement in preventing disengagement and reducing the risk of young people becoming NEET is increasingly well understood. To address this, the government has an ambition for every young person to complete a minimum of two weeks’ worth of work experience by Year 11.
To support this, the new approach will move beyond traditional block placements for work experience, to a more flexible and scalable model, combining virtual experiences, employer-led projects, site visits and short placements. Designed to be more inclusive and relevant to today’s workplace, the model will help more young people access high-quality, modern work experience, while making it easier for employers to participate.
The new approach to work experience builds on IGD’s successful programme of school workshops which has reached 133,000 young people across a third of UK secondary schools since 2012. The workshops are supported by industry volunteers and are centred on NEET prevention, and evidence shows that prevention works: the highest quality careers provision reduces the likelihood of young people being NEET by 8%, with double the impact for young people who receive Free School Meals.
As part of Feeding Britain’s Future, the school workshops will become part of a wider package of work experience for young people, to ensure they are getting those vital early interactions, with an ambition to reach 50,000 young people through school workshops in 2027.
The modernised work experience will pilot in 2026 with regional groups across the South, the Midlands and the North of England. Each group will bring together food businesses to create a joined-up ‘farm to fork’ experience for schools. Employers will be able to contribute in different ways, from one-hour engagements to multi-day experiences, allowing a much broader range of businesses to get involved.
The learnings from the pilot scheme will be used to develop resources, templates and guidance to enable committed businesses to deliver modern work experience at scale in 2027.
Sarah Bradbury, Chief Executive at IGD, comments: “Food and drink is one of the UK’s biggest and most diverse sectors, but too many young people still don’t see it as a place to build their future. Through Feeding Britain’s Future, we want to change that by opening up access, raising awareness and creating meaningful experiences of work. I’m proud that, together, we are pioneering a more modern, flexible approach to work experience that is inclusive, relevant and better suited to the world of work today.”
