Profile of currently employed European food scientists and technologists : Education , experience and skills

The food and drink (F&D) sector in Europe ranks low in innovation and the European F&D industry has been losing importance in the global market. The food professionals, i.e., food scientists and technologists (FSTs), may not be meeting the varied demands of the sector. Here, education, experience and skills of current FSTs were identified and compared geographic regions and employment areas. Between 2009 and 2012, 287 questionnaires representing over 4000 FSTs were collected from employers in 16 countries. Analyses showed that more than 80% of FSTs have a university degree; but only in Industry in the Central European region are most degrees in food science/technology. More than half of FSTs, and almost 60% in the South, have less than 10 years’ experience. The most common FST job title is Quality Manager, but with several variations based on region and employment area. Among skills, the most common is Communicating ; found in over 90% of FSTs in all regions and employment areas. Food Safety is the most common of the food sector-specific skills, present in more than 75% of FSTs, yet there are differences in food sector skills based on employment area. Overall, these data suggest similarities among currently employed food professionals throughout Europe; they are young and highly educated, but also differences, especially in their food sector-specific skills. An understanding of the current FST should contribute to the improvement of FST training and thus benefit the European food sector.


Introduction
The food and drink (F&D) sector is one of the most varied in terms of diversity of employment: industry of all sizes and specialities, research institutes, government regulatory agencies importance in the global food market.One of the reasons for the decline may be technological changes in F&D employment areas and a lack of corresponding training of FST professionals.Another could be the difficulty in forecasting skill needs for a rapidly changing sector which recently shifted from a product-centred industry to a customer-centred market.In either case, one of the first steps in providing industry and other F&D employers with the professionals they need is to identify the profile of the current employee.Efforts to identify the current FST have generally been undertaken on a national scale.In the UK, for example, a food manufacturing study divided FST skills into three broad categories (Personal Attributes, Basic and Generic Skills, Vocational Skills) and reported a severe shortage in Personal Attributes but gave no information on worker education or experience (Dench, Hillage, Reilly, & Kodz, 2000).This study considered less than 50 food industries.A later UK study on skills for agriculture and food looked at high level skills in different employment areas and reported shortages for "niche skills" including plant pathology and flavour science, yet "broader areas of expertise" such as informatics and science communication did not show shortages (Beddington, 2010).These authors pointed out the difficulties arising from the many gaps and lack of consistency within the UK data, they warned that problems could be masked and conclusions confused.An Irish study on food sector employees examined profiles only of those working for Industry; slightly more than half were reported to have no university degree, there was no breakdown of degree type and all FSTs were considered as having a "professional occupation" with no further enumeration of their skills (Expert Group on Future Skills Needs (EGFSN), 2008).These examples attest to the fragmentation of available data about the F&D sector employee and the difficulties even within a single country of comparing data from different national sources.Additionally, while levels of education and years of experience may be easily comparable, very different skill categories have been used making Europewide comparisons and conclusions even more difficult.The terms "skill", "knowledge" and "competence" have been individually defined by educa-tional institutions and by the European Commission (European Commission, 2008) but their common use may overlap and a clear distinction is not easy, especially for the non-specialist.Thus, here, for simplicity, the term "skill" is used with the acceptance that it sometimes may be referring more to knowledge or to competency.Recent work on skill requirements for successful employment has pointed to the importance of soft skills; also called personal attributes, character traits or generic, key, transferable or generalizable skills.These are skills such as communication or team work; they are used in a wide variety of contexts and their mastery is associated with success in many fields (Dearing, 1996).Nonetheless, they are often overlooked, especially in more scientific and technical lines of work.In order to clearly differentiate, the questionnaire asked specifically about the soft skills present in FSTs and separately about their food sector-specific skills.
Here, the profile of the current FST in 16 European countries and five employment areas was analysed using a questionnaire directed to FST managers or human resources departments.It was therefore not a self-evaluation, but an employers' view of their employees.The aim was to define the currently employed European FST and to determine if differences exist based on geographic region and/or employment area. 2 Materials and Methods

Questionnaires
The questionnaire was prepared by a team of three food sector professionals: a university professor, an industry association representative and a research consortium representative.It was nine pages with 24 questions and divided into three sections: organization profile, FST academic and career status and competencies and skills desired in FSTs.A data protection notice and informed consent were prepared alongside the questionnaire and a statement guaranteeing confidentiality was included on the first page.for each employment area and geographical region.For questions 13 and 14, regarding soft and food-specific skills, three researchers together assigned each choice to a specific skill using the list found in Knowledge and Skills Requirements for Careers in the Food Industry (Ho, Lindbom, & Wahnström, 2011).These are the same skill classifications recently used for identifying most desired FST skills (Flynn et al., 2013) and they are shown in Table 2.The observed values for skills in the current FST were compared with expected values using a chi square test with p < 0.05 required for significance.Expected was defined as the same percentages of FSTs with the same skills in all geographic regions and employment areas.

Education and Experience
In each geographical region, more than 80% of professionals working as FSTs had a university degree (BSc, MSc or PhD) (Fig. 1A).The number of those with degrees specifically in Food Science and Technology was near 50% in the North, South and East while for Central Europe, this value was lower: 38%.This was unexpectedly low in a region that includes Germany and France, which together represent more than 40% of food industry net sales in countries considered here (Food Drink Europe, 2012).However, looking only at industry (Large Enterprise and SME ), one sees that the Central region had the highest percentage of FST degrees, 86% (Fig. 1B), suggesting that professionals with the knowledge and competences acquired from an FST degree may contribute to the competitiveness of the food industry in this region.
Overall, SME had a lower number of FSTs with university degrees than Large Enterprises, yet those with degrees in FST were in a higher percentage in SMEs.Perhaps the multidisciplinary nature of this degree (Oliveira & Medina, 1997) fits the requirement of multiple functions performed by the professionals in an SME.These results may also be influenced by the probable high number of professionals with FST degrees working as consultants (categorized as industry in this study) -many micro and small companies IJFS October 2013 Volume 2 pages 137-149   outsource food safety control to small consultancies in their region and this has been a traditional career path for FST graduates.For Other employers (e.g., food distribution and catering), there was also a high percentage with a degree in FST.This may reflect needs in these employment areas regarding food safety -driven by leg-  The importance of a degree in FST can be evaluated by the satisfaction of employers with the new graduates they hire.To this question, the vast majority, 97% of respondents, were either "somewhat satisfied" or "very satisfied".Only 3% (7) were "Not at all satisfied, new employees with practical experience are better than those with diplomas" and these respondents represented only 32 FSTs.These results clearly show that the level of education in Food Science and Technology in European universities is satisfactory and graduates acquire a good understanding of the basic principles needed for success in the F&D workplace.The need for further training after graduation is only natural: The F&D sector has very different specificities, e.g.dairy industry is very different from bakery pro-duction and government regulators different from distributors.
It can be seen in Table 4 that the number of working FSTs has not changed much in the last 10 years: 28% have less than 5 years' work experience, nearly equal to the 27% with 5 to 10 years' experience.The exceptions were the South region and the employment area Other.
The high percentage of new graduates working in the South may reflect job growth, which was the highest among the European regions in this study (Table 5).In Other employment, the high proportion may relate to recent consumer trends: The increase of ready-to-go meals in supermarkets and self-serve restaurants brings a new need for FST professionals in this market.It is also noteworthy that around 50% of FSTs have more than ten years' experience.This is a relatively low number as this is an interval which continues until the end of working life (circa 40 years).Two factors may influence the relative "youth" of the FST workforce shown here: 1. an increase in the need for FST professionals in the last decade and/or 2. careers of FST professionals tend to progress to more managerial roles, i.e., no longer considered a Food Scientist or Food Technologist, after 10 or so years into working life.

Skills, Competencies and Knowledge
The number one soft skill overall was Communicating, 94% of currently employed FSTs had this skill.Communicating includes writing, reading and presenting information, listening and understanding instructions and ability to speak other languages (usually English).
Communicating was the number one skill in each employment area and each geographical region (Fig. 3).It is interesting to note that Communicating is intimately related to and clearly necessary for success in these other high-ranking skills.A recent study on forestry science graduates showed that communication skills are correlated with income, yet not self-evaluated as among the most important soft skills (Rekola, 2012), suggesting that employers and employees may have different views of this skill.Among the food-specific skills, knowledge and competences, the number one overall was Food Safety Management, Food Hygiene & Food Safety IJFS October 2013 Volume 2 pages 137-149 Control, 80% of FSTs overall and as many as 89% in the South had this skill.This was the only skill among the top three in all geographical regions and employment areas (Fig. 4).Regionally, Product Development was also among the top three and though food-specific skills appeared to vary by region, the differences did not reach statistical significance.In the East, Production Management & Operations skills appeared common, 72% of FSTs, perhaps related to the relative youth of the F&D industry, reported by Halliday (2009) to be a good investment location for F&D operations.In the North, 68% of average FSTs were skilled in Legislation, exemplified by a recent UK job posting for a Food Technologist with knowledge of "labelling legislation" (Greenbank & Kirk Recruiters, 2012).More research will be necessary to see if these differences are valid.
In the different employment areas, there were statistically significant differences in FST skills (p < 0.05).The only skill in the top 3 for all 5 areas was Food Safety Management, Food Hygiene & Food Safety Control, clearly demonstrating that safe food is valued by all employers (Fig. 4).For Our recent report on skills in the "ideal" FST showed Communicating as the most desired skill overall (Flynn et al., 2013), suggesting that at some level FST employers have what they want.
Yet when asked to 'design the ideal FST', many more soft skills were mentioned, both variety of skills and number of times, than were food skills.FOP, 2009).The Canadian Stem Cell Network offered a workshop and published a follow up article on the importance of soft skills for scientists (Rancourt, 2009).More recently, the Australian Association of Engineering Education heard a report on integrating soft skills, including communication, into university engineering courses (Armstrong & Baillie, 2012).Food sector-specific skills vary with employment area with three different number one skills in the five areas considered: Product Development, Production and Food Safety.Yet employers want other skills as well, e.g., Food Legislation (Flynn et al., 2013).Additionally, food skills viewed as important by policy makers and perhaps also by the general public, e.g.sustainability and environmental issues on the one hand and nutrition and healthy diet on the other, were not commonly found in current FSTs.While the data here show that FSTs working in different areas of employment have different food-specific skills, the ideal is subtle but important differences depending on both region and employment area for both food and soft skills (ibid.).

Figure 1 :
Figure 1: Education of current food scientists / food technologists.Per cent of total FSTs considered (7756) with a university degree (blue bar), per cent of FSTs with a university degree whose degree is in food science or food technology (red bar) and per cent of total FSTs with a certification instead of or in addition to a degree (green bar). A. Per cent in four geographic regions and B. in five employment areas.C. Per cent of total FSTs employed by Industry, SME and Lg Enterprise (3902), with university degree, FST degree and/or certification as above in four geographic regions.

Figure 2 :
Figure 2: University degrees in Food Science or Food Technology.Per cent of total FSTs with a university degree in Food Science or Food Technology (3231) whose highest degree is a Bachelor (blue bar), a Master (red bar) or a PhD (green bar). A. Per cent in four geographic regions and B. in five employment areas.

Figure 3 :Figure 4 :
Figure 3: Soft skills in current food scientists and food technologists.Employers (281) indicated which of a list of nine soft skills were found in the "average FST" in their organisation.A. Top three skills in four geographic regions and B. in five employment areas.

Table 1 :
Organisation of 16 participating countries into 4 geographic regions In Table 3, the most conservative i.e., the lowest numbers are reported.The distribution of responses by region, employment area and size of the company are presented in Table 3.It can be seen that countries in the East (Hungary, Lithuania, Romania and Turkey) had the highest participation, 99 questionnaires representing over 1100 FSTs, with 72 responses from Industry.In this regard, it is interesting to note that the F&D industry in these Eastern countries is much less productive, as estimated by the ratio between net sales and number of employees (Food Drink Europe, 2012) than the participating North, Central or Southern European countries.This, together with recent EU membership, perhaps motivated F&D employers to contribute to the study.
Between December 2009 and May 2012, 287 questionnaires were collected from the 16 partner countries of the Track Fast project; 6 of these questionnaires could not be used either because of missing or contradictory information.Finally, 281 questionnaires representing approximately 4000 FSTs were analysed.It is necessary to say "approximately", because the number of FSTs was never asked directly.The information came from 3 questions (Q2.How many FSTs are there in your company/organisation (approximate number)?, Q3.How many FSTs in your organisation have a degree?and 4. How many of your staff work as FSTs, but have no degree?combined and Q6.How much work experience do the FSTs in your organisation have?Indicate approx.how many have each of the following years of experience).These three methods of obtaining number of FSTs per respondent did not always give identical results.

Table 2 :
Assignment of questionnaire choice to published list of soft and food sector-specific skills.

Table 3 :
Distribution of returned questionnaires by region, employment area and size of the organization.Most conservative estimate of number of FSTs represented is indicated in parentheses

Table 4 :
Number of years of work experience of food scientists / food technologists in four geographic regions and five employment areas

Table 6 :
Job titles of Food Scientists / Food Technologists.Variation in job titles in different employment areas Government andOther, where FSTs may be writing and enforcing food-related legislation.As this skill was also more prevalent in the North, perhaps Government and Other samples contained a high number of respondents from the North and/or vice versa.In fact, most Government responses came from Central and East, most Other responses from the South and most Northern responses from Large Enterprise leading us to believe that having an FST with Legislation skills is independently associated both with a Northern location and with a Government or Other employment area.In the Research employment area, Research was the most common skill, 91% of FSTs; among The same soft skills are found in FSTs working in all geographic regions and all employment areas, with Communicating skills the most common.
It seems FST training is on the right track in providing the soft skills employers need, but has not yet reached the depth nor breadth of soft skills required.Other reports have come to similar conclusions about the need for soft skills.A recent study by CEFIC (The European Chemical Industry Council) reported that high level industry representatives listed Communication as the number 2 personal skill required for scientists and the number 1 personal skill for engineers (CEDE- These results clearly indicate a need for further attention to skills in the FST workforce.Qualification and training of F&D professionals is necessary for innovation, yet it has recently been noted that F&D does not make the necessary investment in its workforce (European Technology Platform, Food for Life, 2012).Knowledge of the training needed comes from understanding what employers have and what they want.A regular repetition of this study would provide such IJFS October 2013 Volume 2 pages 137-149 knowledge and allow understanding of trends in F&D employee skills.Taken together with other work from the Track Fast project, these results can contribute to improving the profile of the European food scientist and thus to improving the competitiveness of the food & drink sector.