Science and Technology Blogs
Welcome to our Science and Technology graduate blog page!
Feel free to post comments and come back to share more experiences with our science & technology graduates.
The appliance of science
Posted by Tom on 11 Oct 06
I am at the end of my first 2 weeks on the graduate scheme now and can honestly say it has flown by! Many of my days have been taken up by meetings arranged with all (over 57!) of my key stakeholders. These are the people I will work most closely with, including senior management. The meetings have really allowed me to quickly form an insight into what is expected of me as well as being a fantastic way to settle in to a company that is dauntingly big! They have shown me the structure of the department and also the ability to say hello and recognise people as you walk around helps you feel at home very quickly.
Aside from these meetings there has been a visit from a flavour house (where I was involved in taste testing samples) and one of the company's largest suppliers who gave a really insightful lecture on the production and use of the fats, polyols and glucose syrups that they manufacture. I found this particularly useful because I have no previous experience in the food industry. If you haven't either, or have studied what you think is an unrelated course, it really shouldn't put you off because there is a massive selection of courses and, possibly more importantly, many opportunities to gain hands on experience working with confectionery and to increase your knowledge.
Borrowers at work
Posted by Michelle on 08 Oct 06
Even though I've been working in Bournville for over a year, I still for the life of me can't navigate the factory! As an S&T Grad I find myself regularly in the factory on little 'borrowing' trips - for those of you who remember 'The Borrowers' you will understand the concept (some may call it stealing but it's all for a good cause so no worries).
My Mission this week was to go borrow some ingredients from the factory and make up 2 different Roses units - sounds easy right? Wrong! A whole week has elapsed and I am still no where near getting all my ingredients! Oh well I suppose its a chance to brush up on my influencing skills!
Making progress
Posted by Joe on 17 Aug 06
My first three months have flown by.
I work in the 'Snacking Today' team in Science and Technology. We deal with the design and development of everyday snacking products - this basically includes all the brands under the Cadbury Dairy Milk 'umbrella' and all our 'count lines' such as Crunchie and Flake. This year my teams' most successful launch has been The Crème Egg bar and next month is the eagerly anticipated Cadbury Dairy Milk Melts.
For the first couple of months I was closely shadowing my colleagues in order to learn basic confectionery skills, how the product development process works and where we fit into the 'big machine'. I'm now in charge of my own projects giving me real responsibility. I'm learning more and more everyday and my work is incredibly varied. I've been to factory trials, suppliers and third party manufacturers all over the country and even abroad. I'm looking forward to attending training courses in Brussels, Lille and Cologne in the near future.
Day to day I spend a lot of time in our pilot plant making up samples and concepts for my current projects. There is always a lot of correspondence to keep up with and project/team meetings to attend. Currently I'm also helping to organise my departments' community challenge - we're doing environmental work at a local heritage site for the day.
I'm really enjoying my job at the moment, like anyone I have my up and down days, but generally I look forward to going into work everyday. On the negative side - the staff shop - I seem to get carried away with the illusion that because all the sweets and chocolates are cheap, somehow I'm not really paying for them - needless to say I've spent a lot!
My friends appreciate all the free chocolate though. But this doesn't stop them asking stupid questions about what my job involves i.e. chocolate waterfalls, Umpa Lumpas and spoilt children called Augustus Gloop. I've also been asked several times why we don't produce a Crème Egg the size of an Easter egg - believe it or not this has already been attempted, not by us though.
Bonjour!
Posted by Michelle on 25 Nov 05
The Christmas period has already had an effect on my projects and things have been a bit hectic to say the least! I have been spending a lot of my time making up literally hundreds of product samples so that marketing can get consumer feedback on them before the Christmas period. I have also been involved in lots of competitor analysis which requires me to see what products are already on the market and this is no easy job! One afternoon I had to eat 20 different competitor products and that's a lot of chocolate! But I still managed to eat my dinner afterwards!
Now that all of my samples have been completed for research I can now get on with some product innovation - this is where I spend my days in the pilot plant just making up weird and wonderful products (anything that comes into my head!). This process will help me to hopefully come up with some ideas that have good potential and then they can be investigated further to see if they have any mileage with consumers!
In-between my innovation work I've also got a fantastic trip to Paris lined up! There I will be attending the Food Ingredients Exhibition - this is a chance for me to meet hundreds of ingredient suppliers to see what new and innovative products they have and what they can offer directly for my projects. Can't wait!
All that I wanted to know about sweets
Posted by Michelle on 17 Oct 05
I'm two and a half months into my graduate placement in Science and Technology, working in new product development and I'm definitely in information overload! You wouldn't think there was so much to learn about chocolate, but trust me there is. So to facilitate me in my learning I obviously had to visit the chocolate capital of the world - Belgium! The purpose of the trip was to learn all about the theory of chocolate making and so I learnt about a industry method called tempering which allows us to gain a perfect glossy finish to our chocolate and I also learnt loads about what ingredients to use to obtain the perfect melt, texture and taste in our chocolate. It was a pretty heavy going 3 days of lectures but well worth it - especially when i was sent home with more chocolate than I could carry!
So it was home for the weekend from Belgium but not for too long as I was straight off to France to meet with our French colleagues to learn all about sugar confectionary (sugar confectionary is any sweets where the main ingredient is sugar i.e. Wine Gums, Jelly Babies, Marshmallows, Caramels etc). In this week long course I learnt all the theory regarding the best ingredients to use and the functionality of the ingredients, and I also participated in lots of practical work to really understand how the products are manufactured and what problems can arise. The course also provided an opportunity to network with other Cadbury Science and Technology people which is always useful when you need help and advice with any projects your having difficulties with. Once again I was sent home with copious amounts of sweeties.
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