The Serious Sweet Company produces sugar-boiled confectionery for retailers’ own brands including M&S, Sainsbury’s, ASDA and Harrods as well as its own direct to consumer confectionery brand, STIRRD.

They decided to recruit degree apprentices to encourage young individuals to experience career and learning opportunities in a varied, dynamic and challenging market — helping to develop food professionals of the future

 “Apprentices bring bright, inquisitive minds to our business. They demonstrate youthful optimism, and are ready to learn and grow to help improve not just themselves but the business too. 

The degree apprenticeship programme enables structured learning with clear objectives for the apprentice to achieve both in and out of the workplace. We have found the additional coaching and mentoring offered by Hallam a real help as a smaller business as it has provided us with a breadth of knowledge.

As a smaller company, employing an apprentice has provided us with an additional resource in a very busy and virtual area of our business. Our apprentice works in new product development, working with customers to develop new product ranges. This covers a huge range of competencies from raw material sourcing and approving, packaging development and product trialling — representing the whole portfolio of our business. 

We find apprentices deliver a higher return on investment as they develop a holistic understanding of the business over a three-year period. This is important as we are a primarily seasonal business, so the duration of the programme allows our apprentice to take on more responsibility each year as their knowledge increases.

I would recommend degree apprenticeships to small, medium sized businesses as the scheme not only challenges the business but the individual as well. It is a great way to improve coaching and mentoring skills internally while providing development opportunities to key team members."

— Rob Whitehead, Owner, The Serious Sweet Company