The first cut was made by Peterborough City Council Leader John Holdich and the event was attended amongst others, by local businesses in the food manufacturing industry.
The new centre will be a dedicated training resource to support the training needs of the local food manufacturing and processing industries and to train people who wish to pursue a career in these industries. After speaking with large food manufacturing companies in the region, research by a College led steering group determined there was a skills gap in the industry.
The development is being jointly funded by the College and the Greater Cambridge Greater Peterborough Enterprise Partnership (LEP) and will include state of the art facilities incorporate a development kitchen built to meet British supermarket standards of preparation. The Centre will also feature a real food manufacturing production line to support students and local businesses in the design and manufacture of processed food products.
Lindum Peterborough has been appointed as the contractors, with the final works scheduled to be completed by July ready for the start of term in September 2016. Once completed, the Centre will support the substantial number of local employers operating in the Food Industry through apprenticeships, traineeships and potential skilled employees, and develop a pipeline of young people who are prepared for and are interested in a career in the Food Industry.
Barbara Grange, Director of Procurement at PRC said “This is a really exciting opportunity for the College as it allows us to broaden our course offering to meet the changing employment needs of greater Peterborough and the surrounding areas. This state of the art facility will allow us to increase our student numbers, enabling us to prepare the students so they’re ready for employment in a highly technical industry”.
Neil Darwin, Chief Executive of the Greater Cambridge Greater Peterborough LEP, said: “This investment will help to meet the skills needs of local businesses both now and in the future. By working with local companies to determine the type of skills and experience they need to grow, we can help to create a steady flow of appropriately skilled local people ready to take advantage of local job opportunities in this important sector.”
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