Background
I developed a keen interest in the food industry after working in various sectors such as meat and food manufacturing, and found this work both challenging and rewarding. This is why after coming across the Bord Bia stand at a career fair, I jumped at the opportunity.
Originally I was concerned that because I had a degree in Economics, Politics and Law, that I would be at a disadvantage to those who had an agriculture or food related degree. However, that was not the case and the Bord Bia graduate programme is open to all disciplines.
Layout of the Programme
This programme is both an opportunity to work in an office environment while also completing a masters. This masters is taught in UCD Smurfit which consistently ranks among the top Business Schools in the world. Graduates from Smurfit are also in high demand, with 84% on average, being employed within the first six months. The vast majority of your time will be spent working in the office. Every couple of months we get block releases to attend Smurfit, where we take our classes. These generally last one or two weeks.
Bord Bia
There are placement opportunities both abroad and at home. I was located in the Dublin office working in both the Seafood and Prepared Consumer Foods (PCF) sectors.
Seafood
Seafood was to be my main focus. It was a steep learning curve for me, as I had little experience of this sector. I was able to learn about the strategic strengths of the sector along with the challenges that lay ahead. Along the way I have gain good understanding of the industry as a whole and its importance to Ireland and appreciate Bord Bia’s influence in this. Bord Bia works to develop Irish seafood companies and help them to expand their businesses both at home and abroad. It ensures that these clients follow programmes to certify that their products are produced in a sustainable manner.
The most well-known of these programmes is called Origin Green. This is Ireland’s ground-breaking sustainability programme, and it offers Irish products a unique selling point. It enables all channels of the industry, from farmers to retailers, to produce sustainable goods. Origin Green entails setting targets for these businesses and carrying out audits to verify that standards are being met.
A lot of the work I have been focused on in the seafood sector is the based around tradeshows. I work with design agencies to make directories and leaflets for the tradeshows. One of the major changes during my time in Bord Bia was a new branding. This new branding had to be applied to all our promotional material and I have oversaw all of these changes in seafood. It involves working extensively with the digital team to ensure that everything meets our new guidelines. This work also offers me the opportunity to travel to these tradeshows. In the near future I will be attending the SEG tradeshow in Brussels, which is the largest seafood tradeshow in the world. This provides a good opportunity to meet clients face to face and gain a greater understanding of the industry.
One of my ongoing responsibilities is updating Salesforce in regard to seafood clients. Salesforce is a client database which allows you to have a better understanding of your clients and manage them more effectively. To do this you must have a lot of information on your clients, so I was tasked with finding this out, and inputing the information to the database. I did through either trawling the internet, calling the clients themselves or even interviewing them when they attended Bord Bia events. It was hugely beneficial to me as I came away with a lot of info about all of the seafood clients and what they needed to continuously improve their business.
PCF
When I began in Bord Bia, I originally thought I would be working solely in Seafood. However I soon found out that I would start in PCF). This turned out to be a great learning experience as PCF is varied and cross-sectoral, which meant I was able to learn a bit of everything. One of my earliest projects was to update the Irish Food and Drink website. This was a much underutilised website which function was to provide foreign buyers with a list of Irish suppliers. My role was to figure out why it was not being used and how best to improve it. This involved sending surveys across Bord Bia and interviewing sector managers personally for their opinion. Equipped with these new findings, I was able to submit a proposal to update the website. Working in this area was completely new to me and I really enjoyed it.
Some of my other projects included organising webinars and presentations for different companies on entering new markets. One of these projects I undertook was organising a workshop and webinar on market entry into airline catering. This involved me using technology that I would never have used previously and thereby gaining new IT skills.
PCF also encompasses Small Business so I was given responsibilities within this sector as well. I gained a greater understanding of how the needs of small business can differ from that of a larger one. One of the projects I undertook was organising the Small Business open day. One of the tasks required was to put together a video to be shown on the day. This was out of my comfort zone but I learned a lot. The content of the video was completely under my control and it was an interesting experience deciding on content lours, music, sequences and colours. I would then liaise with a digital company who would apply them. I travelled down to Kilkenny to take part in the set up of the day and ensure that everything ran smoothly. This was the first time I would have travelled with work and was a very enjoyable experience.
One of the most engaging projects I was tasked with and probably the one I have been most invested in to date, was keeping track of marketplace results. Marketplace was an event held by Bord Bia which aimed to connect Irish suppliers with new buyers from around the world, in order to create new business. My role was to keep track of the business that was created. A website was developed to hold all of marketplace’s data. It kept a record of all meetings that were held at marketplace, who was at the meetings, what was said, and most importantly was any business created from the meetings. It analysed what sector this business was coming from and what part of the world. I was in constant contact with market managers around the world to make sure we got figures for these meetings. During my time overseeing this, the reported figures rose from 7 million euros to 32 million euros. This was an invaluable experience as I has personal responsibility for it and spent a lot of time on it.
Travel
One of the most attractive parts of this programme is the international placements. Bord Bia have international offices around the world and graduates can be placed in one of these offices. Currently the split between Dublin based grads and international grads is 50/50, with 16 home office grads and 16 international grads. I was placed in Dublin, however from listening to the other grads, they are having an amazing time abroad. I lived in Berlin for a year so I can relate to what they are experiencing. International grads can expect to be fully immersed in a different culture, learning another language. Many go their whole lifetime without getting the chance to live abroad so it’s not something to be sniffed at. Many of the grads return to UCD, reporting great memories and making great friends.
UCD
Returning to our block releases for college is a very enjoyable time. It is a nice change of pace from work and everyone is back in the same place. Usually the grads will try get out together once or twice during the week and have some fun. We would usually have lectures from 9 to 5 every day in the same room, and although it seems like that might get tedious after a while, it is actually quite interesting and engaging. The lectures are interactive with hands on class exercises throughout the day.
Overall my time on this programme has been hugely beneficial for me and I couldn’t recommend it more highly to those looking for a graduate programme. If you are interested in learning more about the programme please visit Bord Bia’s website at: https://www.bordbia.ie/about/bord-bia-careers/international-grad-programme/