Corporate releases

United Biscuits savours benefit of local community investment

Date: 11-10-2012

 United Biscuits has scooped a prestigious national Food Industry Award for corporate responsibility

United Biscuits employees spent 186 days volunteering for their local communities

United Biscuits is this year’s winner of the Asda Employability Award. This is one of thirteen IGD Food Industry Awards which were announced on Tuesday 9 October in London. The awards recognise achievements of companies in food manufacturing, farming, retail, distribution, wholesaling and foodservice.

Presented by Judith McKenna from Asda, she said: “The Asda Employability Award recognises organisations that are showing great leadership, creating opportunities for all, building peoples’ confidence, boosting employability skills and raising awareness of the fantastic career opportunities we can provide as an industry. United Biscuits stood out to the judges as it is delivering initiatives that not only meet the needs of the local community, but local employees own the development and implementation of the programmes. The initiatives are tied into the corporate business plan and are a pillar of their corporate social responsibility programme.” 

The ‘Building our Community’ programme is working to build partnerships with schools, colleges and universities in order to share skills and knowledge throughout the education system. The programme aims to address the skills shortage in manufacturing, particularly in science and engineering. With a flexible grass roots approach United Biscuits has engaged young people with both the company and the food industry at local sites supporting local communities.

Hema Patel, Talent & Resourcing Manager at United Biscuits, commented: 
"We are delighted to win the ASDA Employability Award. Investing in our sites and our future is vital to UB, and, as many of our sites have been employing generations of families, it's also vital that we continue to invest in our local communities. This enables our organisation to have a skilled workforce, and ensures that our factories are at the heart of their communities. We look forward to improving our People & Community programme even further over the coming years, with a continued focus on how we provide skills development for our future employees."

Joanne Denney-Finch, IGD chief executive, said: “The IGD Food Industry Awards recognise the best-in-class and demonstrate some of the most exciting new thinking in our sector. I would like to personally extend my congratulations to United Biscuits for their outstanding investment in their local communities.”