The Undergraduate Placement: Project Engineer - Process Improvement will work within the Process Improvement - Commercial team supporting the wider manufacturing team to deliver innovative solutions to the food manufacturing processes and improving financial performance. You will be working on a range of projects with a variety of people across different levels and departments, both within manufacturing & supply chain (MSC) and the wider business.

This role will provide:

• An opportunity to interact with and experience all parts of a business
• Involvement with specific projects that you will be able to co-ordinate and play an active part in
• Exposure to working with individuals from all backgrounds
• The opportunity to develop general business skills and relationships
• Exposure to large data sets, financial information, and highly complex manufacturing processes.

apetito is the UK’s leading food supplier to the health and social care sectors serving more than 1,300 care homes, health care and education settings.

Our meals are expertly crafted by our dieticians and chefs, and then frozen to lock in the goodness.

Wiltshire Farm Foods, our sister company, is the UK’s largest ready meal supplier cooking and delivering over 330 different delicious frozen ready meals across the UK.

Many of our placement students have gone on to join the company as Graduates on completing their degrees. Full details on the programme can be found on our careers pages at apetito Graduates.

From a previous placement student: 

“The opportunity is fantastic. apetito have a great working environment and provide you with a range of experiences and projects to expand your knowledge in many different areas. Being able to come into work also helps to build your self-confidence and work collaboratively with a diverse team of placement students and graduates from different disciplines. This placement has allowed me to get the most out of my year in industry and has permitted me to work on projects that I am extremely interested in.” 

• You will be required to understand complex manufacturing processes and develop innovative engineering or process solutions to improve the performance of our manufacturing facility. 
•  Working in a range of environments, you will gain experience in manufacturing principles
  • Process flows
  • Facility design
  • Production equipment
  • Opportunity to learn and put in practice techniques such as lean, sigma and forecasting. 
• You will also need to carry out extensive data analysis and data handling activities. This would include projects such as:
  • Building data models to identify/ validate any capacity constraints
  • Model upstream/downstream bottlenecks when installing new equipment
  • Support production and senior stakeholders, by designing reports and KPI’s to drive improvements
•  
• Support the team in delivering Manufacturing and Supply Chain Digital Transformation projects. A wide range of projects are managed under this programme. The aim is to deliver projects that help achieve one or more of the following benefits:
  • Improving efficiencies, reducing costs, and driving productivity.
  • Reducing food and packaging waste across the supply chain.
  • Improve product quality, food safety and health and safety.
  • Enhance customer experience.

Previous projects worked on under this program:

Production Capacity Modelling

• Understand the project by breaking the question down and forming a scope
• Using excel and similar platforms to perform data analysis, creating and maintaining capacity models, forecasts and KPI’s
• Provide conclusions based on evidence and present these in an efficient manner

Digital Horizon Scanning

• Discover current and future technologies that may add value to our business
• Be the point of contact for national and international technology companies and have the responsibility of arranging meetings involving the management team
• Be the focal touchpoint between MSC and IT, to track progress of projects from initiation through to execution and eliminate blockers.
• Review technologies and maintain the momentum of the discovering new technological capabilities within the realm of manufacturing and supply chain

Raw Material Feasibility Study

• Conduct extensive process mapping and provide recommendations to reduce costs and process steps. 
• Carryout a financial assessment to validate the savings and present all findings to the senior management
• Engage with relevant stakeholders across different levels and departments to ensure the new solution is fit for purpose and aligns with our sustainability goals

Essential:

• You will be studying towards a degree in Engineering, with an expectation that you will receive a 2:2 or above.
• You have a real passion for food and are passionate to deliver the best quality product for our customers
• You are keen to get involved and learn more about the manufacturing and distribution of food.
• Proficient in the use of Microsoft Office – Word, PowerPoint, Excel and Outlook
• You are comfortable to work with large data sets and able to analyse them to determine any patterns or trends to support further work or solution.
• Comfortable of being “hands on” and working in production areas to further understand the challenges and find solutions. Interaction with staff at all levels will be essential in order to be successful in the various projects and tasks assigned.

Desirable:

• Experience of Project Management
• Experience and interest in Microsoft VBA or any other coding language such as Python, MATLAB, etc

Personal Qualities:

• Excellent analysis, problem management, and interpersonal skills
• A completer finisher
• Self-motivated and able to own and manage workload with minimal supervision – a proven self-starter
• Able to demonstrate a structured approach to work as well as being able to work well in team environment and deal with people professionally at all levels
• Is effective at oral and written forms of communication

• Competitive salary – accredited Living Wage employer
• 25 days holiday per year, plus bank holidays
• Option to purchase up to 5 additional days holiday per year
• Discretionary annual bonus scheme
• Pension scheme - employer matched contributions up to 4%
• Life assurance scheme worth at least 1x annual salary
• Subsidised canteen
• Free parking
• Free turkey or voucher at Christmas
• apetito perks scheme including salary sacrifice options and retail discounts

As a family-owned business, we take great pride in being a company that makes a real difference and is dedicated to creating outstanding meals to be proud of.

We develop a range of products designed to enhance health and well-being for all our customers.

We are driven by a passion for service and dedicated to feeding some of the UK’s most vulnerable people.

We proudly support British food and farming, focusing on using the best ethical and sustainable produce in alignment with our goal to reach Net Zero by 2040.

Our ethical standards are recognised by the ETI and we are an accredited Living Wage employer.
Learn more about apetito’s commitment to a more sustainable future.

We embrace inclusion, empowering individuals from diverse backgrounds.

Our commitment to making a real difference extends to customers, communities, and staff and we're on a mission to build an inclusive workplace where everyone reaches their full potential.