What is Technical in ABF?

As you can imagine, making sure our food meets high standards is crucial to our success and this is where Technical plays a huge role. So Technical includes managing all aspects of product quality and food safety; from investigating raw materials to developing new recipes, to supporting production in the factory, and even the routine testing of products to ensure they are the best.

Our central Technical team ensures that our businesses meet all food safety and quality legisilation and customer expectations through delivering documentation and building customer relationships. They also support the development of new products and the improvement of our current recipes, such as the much-loved Kingsmill 50/50 bread.

In the factories, the technical leaders are responsible for implementing the right processes to ensure the highest quality products end up on the supermarket shelves. This involves delivering training, monitoring procedures, and checking quality.

What will you be doing?

You will be working in real roles and get exposure to projects and experiences that will accelerate your learning, enabling you to become one of our future Technical Leaders at ABF.

During your first year you will be based in Maidenhead, Berkshire at our Technical Centre. This is where you will gain some grass roots learning in the following areas:

1. ATC Laboratory – Testing of raw materials and finished products
2. Food Safety
   1. Understanding food processing
3. Allergen management
4. Risk assessment of raw material suppliers and apporving raw material specifications
5. Assisting in site audits
6. Facilitating the improvement of Food Safety standards
7. Technical Standards
   1. Recipe management
8. Nutrition content
9. Completing finished product specifications,
10. Creating quality standards
11. Test baking in the pilot plant
12. New Product Development – Supporting brand and retailer own-label NPD
13. Technical Account Management – Liaising with customers

In your second your, there will be two 6-month placements at different ABF Grocery businesses, gaining hands-on experience in roles such as Quality Assurance Manager or Product Development Technologist.

Previous Technical Graduates have gone on to take roles such as Technical Manager at AB Sports Nutrition, Senior Food Scientist at ATC and Quality Systems Manager at Allied Bakeries once they have completed the scheme.

What do our grads say?

“The best thing about the Technical Graduate Scheme is the variety. Each placement is so different, every day I learn something new! The variety has also helped me to discover the areas of Technical that interest me the most. The scheme involves lots of cross-functional working, for example I could be supporting Marketing to make a claim on a new product or helping production to resolve a quality issue - this means I have learnt to work with many different people, cultures and working environments. Moving between sites has also given me the opportunity to grow a wide network within ABF so I have felt fully supported during my time on the scheme.”

What's the application process?

The process is a few stages long and nothing to be worried about!

1. An online application
2. Online psychometric tests
3. Video interview- it’s best to prepare for this as if it were a standard face to face interview
4. An asessment centre. You will be invited down to one of our ABF sites and this will usually entail a competencies and skills based interview, presenting back on a case study, and a group exercise.

All of these stages are designed to get to know you and to understand your passion and strengths that would make you a great fit! So be yourself, and talk about specific examples that help demonstrate why you’re fab!