Young people in Northern Ireland should be encouraged into hospitality or the industry could face a major shortage, an expert has said.

Caitriona Lennox, Business Development Manager for Mount Charles, has spoken of the importance of showing young people that a wide range of varying and viable career paths exist within the industry.

She explained: “There’s a serious shortage. The hospitality sector at the moment sustains 60,000 jobs across Northern Ireland. There are shortages in the industry and we need to address this. 

“We need to be seriously thinking how we can attract people into the industry.”

Recent research shows that there will be 30,000 vacancies to fill by 2025, with a need to recruit an extra 2000 chefs. 

Mount Charles, a catering and services company, employs over 2500 people.

Their annual Big School Cook Off Competition, in association with SuperValu, is a project aimed at encouraging the next generation of chefs and hospitality figures. 
Now in its fourth year, it is open to all post primary school pupils across Northern Ireland and Donegal, aged between 11 and 14. 

In teams of two, they are challenged to submit a main course recipe idea that feeds two, focusing on locally sourced ingredients that can be bought on a budget of a tenner, or euro equivalent. 

The recipes will be shortlisted on Friday, November 22, one per county, and the winning team from each county will progress to cook their recipe for an esteemed panel of judges at the grand finale of the competition next March, in Belfast Met’s Titanic Quarter Campus. 

County finalists will also be invited to perform a cookery demonstration of their dish, at their local SuperValu store in January, ahead of the final.

Caitriona explained there a wide range of opportunities available in the industry. 
She said: “I think in years gone by there was a perception the hospitality industry meant long hours, working at weekends, low rates of pay and no work-life balance. 

“That may have been the case years ago. But because that may have been the case a lot of employers are now saying: ‘Come and work for us, we do offer a work-life balance, we can give you four days a week, we can give you high rates of pay and we realise you’ve got families at home and we can accommodate that’. 

“The industry is getting much better at realising that people have more in their life than just work.

“In terms of attracting young people into the industry, the reason why the Big School Cook Off attracts students from 11-14 is because that’s the age group we need to be ‘tapping into’.

“There’s no point going to students when they’re already in colleges and universities because they’ve already made their choices on where they’re going.

“We want to get them early and plant the seed about what the opportunities are. There is an endless amount of opportunity in the industry.” 

Head of Marketing for SuperValu, Brendan Gallen, told Belfast Live that the competition fits in with their overall vision. 

He explained: “At Supervalu we have a focus on Real Food and Real People. What that’s about is wholesome, tasty food, provided by the passionate families and colleagues that operate SuperValu stores across the province. We want to make food inspiring for customers, ensuring that they can get great quality food at great value and all under one roof, where we’re making it easier to eat well. 

“So for us, being part of the Big School Cook Off allows us to encourage young people and their families to get into cooking, develop their interest in cooking and really look at their food and their ingredients. How do they use it, where does it come from and how do I create wholesome food from it?

“The locality of food is really important to us. We’ve put so much focus on local suppliers and local ingredients so we supported the Big School Cook Off because it really encourages young people to learn about where their food is coming from. 

“We see ourselves as foodies so we like the idea that we’re helping inspire the next generation of foodies.” 

Brendan added that shopping habits have also changed, with a focus on local and fresh produce. 

He said: “We’ve seen the focus change. The ability to buy fresh fruit and veg and meat is such a big driver for the shopper. We really focus our efforts on that as shopping habits have now changed so that people are now shopping little and often. What’s driving that is that they want to buy food when it’s fresh, they want to cut down on food waste and they want to shop in a way that is convenient to them, supporting their community in the process.”

Source: https://www.belfastlive.co.uk/news/belfast-news/importance-encouraging-young-people-nis-17151764