Food and grocery giants at jobs expo

Food and grocery giants at jobs expo

Some of the New Zealand food and grocery industry’s biggest companies and brands will be on show at a major jobs expo this week in Auckland.

The event is on Wednesday 25 May at Auckland University, and is aimed at showcasing industry career options to graduates. It’s being run by the New Zealand Food & Grocery Council in conjunction with the university’s Career Development & Employment Services team. Companies with stands at the expo include Kimberly-Clark, Fonterra, Coca-Cola, Mars, Whittakers, Heinz Wattie’s, Unilever, Tegel, L’Oreal, Pernod Ricard, Frucor, PepsiCo, Lion, Goodman Fielder, Mondelez, Bluebird, Aztec, Countdown, and Foodstuffs.

Graduates will have the opportunity to sample products and talk to representatives about job opportunities and entry points into the industry. They will be able to leave their details with companies that run graduate programmes or that are looking to hire graduates. There will also be presentations where suppliers and recent graduates will share their stories and promote careers.

Conference organiser and FGC consultant Kelly Smith says the idea for the industry’s first-ever jobs expo was born out of the realisation that more needed to be done to attract and retain the best minds.

“Food and grocery offers the greatest breadth of career options of any industry. You can go into food and grocery as an accountant or in finance, and you can end up in sales, marketing, supply chain, operations. The options are almost limitless but we need to be doing more to get this across, and this expo is a start.

“There are other industries that are far sexier than food and grocery so we’ve got to work hard to get the talent the industry needs. If you look at telco’s and the marketing and advertising agencies – we’re not doing a good job as an industry promoting ourselves to school leavers and to people already in tertiary education.

“We’ve got to start focusing more on how we attract really good-quality talent and promote ourselves as an industry to attract the right talent.”

FGC Chief Executive Katherine Rich says the aim is make FMCG the industry of choice for graduates.

“This is a rare opportunity for graduates to talk face-to-face with the manufacturers of some of New Zealand’s and the world’s iconic brands and gain valuable insights into the sector and see first-hand how FMCG careers can be fast-tracked.

“FMCG careers can influence products that touch the lives of every person, in every home, in every shop, in every corner of New Zealand. They offer a chance to work on brilliant brands in world class companies that promote fresh thinking and are renowned for innovation and quality.

“This sector offers opportunities that most others don’t. For example, multinational food and grocery companies offer the opportunity to work overseas and return to New Zealand with greatly enhanced experience and expertise. Not many other industries can offer that.”

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