Food and Drink Engineer

On a food and drink engineer apprenticeship course, you’ll help maintain, manage and install a diverse range of specialist equipment and technology. A food and beverage engineer maintains, operates, and installs a broad range of specialised equipment and technology used in food and beverage manufacturing.

Your focus will be on managing, maintaining, and continually improving existing assets while integrating technical expertise with an understanding of food safety, science, and technology principles.

You’ll be working within the sector’s restrictions and issues. Product variety, the legal and regulatory framework, environmental challenges, and customer and consumer expectations and standards are among these components.

You will be engaged in mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, process development, and project engineering within food firms.

Among your tasks will include designing and installing new process lines to meet changing corporate needs, identifying the root causes of process and equipment failure, and addressing problems via the use of continuous improvement approaches.

What you’ll learn

On a food and drink engineer apprenticeship course, you’ll learn to:

• Use engineering ideas to carry products/packaged meals.
• Comply with all commercial, legal, and regulatory requirements and customer/consumer and engineering standards.
• Make provisions for items like labour and engineering supplies.
• Influence and engage with employees and others, such as engineers, other departments, and teams.
• Evaluate team and individual performance and making recommendations to help them improve.
• Aid engineering efforts inside the organisation, and collect data from systems utilising IT, digitalisation, and manual methods.
• Examine operational performance, specifications, and data.
• Evaluate probable failure modes and create a strategy, such as technical risk assessment methodology, PPM processes, and RCM procedures.
• Contribute to designing and installing machinery and equipment used to manufacture preserved/fresh and safe food and beverage goods.

Entry requirements

You’ll usually need:

• Two A-levels in maths and at least one other STEM subject, and five GCSEs, including English and maths.
• Apprentices without level 2 English and maths will need to achieve this level before taking the end-point assessment.

Assessment methods

The End Point Assessment comprises three distinct assessment methods: 

• Work-based project, consisting of a report and presentation with questioning.
• Test, multiple-choice and extended answer. 
• Technical Interview, underpinned by a portfolio of evidence.

Duration, length, subjects and potential salary upon completion

Apprenticeship standard

More information about the Level 5 Food and Drink Engineer Apprenticeship standard can be found here.

Apprenticeship end point assessment

For more information about the End Point Assessment Process, please read the Institute of Apprenticeships’ information page