Suzanne Robinson - past student from Loughry Campus writes:

“In 2000 I graduated from CAFRE, Loughry Campus with a BSc. in Food Technology and graduated again from Loughry in 2007, this time with a MSc. in Communications.  I am currently employed as a Quality Manager in a family owned confectionary bakery called Kitchen Bakes Ltd.

Kitchen Bakes is a Portadown based company, which produces high quality bakery products, including sausages rolls, fruit tarts, cakes and tray bakes. Since the company began trading some 23 years ago, it has been the Kitchen Bakes’s ethos to produce convenient products which have been traditionally made for both the retail and the service sectors in N. Ireland.                      

I started working at Kitchen Bakes about 18 months ago in conjunction with a Fusion programme which is a Post Graduate Development Programme. I was responsible for the implementation of a Food Safety and Quality Management System to comply with the standards in the British Retail Consortium Global Standard for Food Safety. Although this was a technically challenging task, its successful completion was extremely rewarding and beneficial to the company from both a production and marketing viewpoint.

Some of my other roles involve introducing systems to reduce waste and maximise efficiencies within the complete bakery. This on-going work is essential, particularly in the current economic climate.

Since graduating, I have maintained strong links with Loughry and throughout my industrial work I have received valuable advice and support from Loughry. Kitchen Bakes has also benefited from attending bespoke training programmes in Loughry.

To date, I have thoroughly enjoyed my working life and feel that my education in Loughry was vital in giving me both the practical and the theoretical knowledge needed to be an effective quality manager in Kitchen Bakes. If you fancy working in a fast moving dynamic industry I'd certainly recommend working in Northern Ireland's Food Industry and you should consider the programmes available at the Loughry Campus”.

Suzanne Robinson, Kitchen Bakes Ltd., and Valerie Finlay, Food Technology Development Branch, Loughry Campus, CAFRE discussing the importance of ingredient selection for bakery products