The UK food and drink industry is uniting to tackle what it calls a workforce crisis.
Facing a critical labour shortage and skills gap, businesses, trade bodies and government are rallying behind the new ’Mmmake Your Mark’ initiative, led by the Institute of Grocery Distribution (IGD).
The 2025 campaign aims to directly address the workforce challenges by highlighting the wide range of rewarding career paths available, from farm to fork.
New research commissioned by IGD reveals a significant disconnect between young people’s career aspirations and their awareness of diverse opportunities within the UK’s dynamic food and drink industry. The comprehensive survey, involving over 1,000 young people aged 16-25 as well as 1,000 parents, underscores a pressing need to reframe the industry’s image and highlight its breadth of modern career paths.
The research shows that over a third (38%) of young people aged 16-25 cite their parents or guardians as the single biggest influence on their career considerations. This influence often translates into pressure, with 57% of young people admitting they have felt pressure from parents or teachers to pursue ‘traditional’ or ‘safe’ careers such as law, medicine or finance.
Strikingly, despite this external pressure, 6 in 10 (61%) of young people expressed a genuine passion for creative and service-led industries, including careers in food. However, a stark one in five (19%) do not realise they can pursue these passions within a career in the food and drink industry.
Sarah Bradbury, CEO of the IGD (left), said: “The food and drink industry is one of the UK’s most dynamic and largest private-sector employers, offering incredible careers which are professional, varied, high-tech, and well-paid. We want to bridge this knowledge gap and showcase to parents, career advisors and young people the rewarding careers available in our industry.”
The UK food system employs 4.2m people, making up around 13% of all employment. However, IGD foresight predicts that the workforce challenge is set to escalate if proactive action is not taken by the industry.
IGD is urging the food and drink industry to join the Mmmake Your Mark initiative to raise awareness of the diverse opportunities and essential skills available within the sector, to help create a more resilient food system.
Kicking off from today (27 August) and running throughout September, the IGD encourages all businesses across the food system to post on social media about careers in the industry and to share any other posts using the hashtag #mmmakeyourmark or tag @mmmakeyourmark.
To support this, IGD has developed a suite of fully adaptable Mmmake Your Mark assets. These resources can help organisations take action, from creating a social media plan to promote their business, career opportunities and people.
To find out more about the campaign, download the toolkit here or contact mmmakeyourmark@igd.com.
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