Top award for Dunbia Butchery Academy

The Butchery Academy at Dunbia, Northern Ireland's biggest meat processor, has been named the UK's Best Company Training Scheme by the Institute of Meat and the Worshipful Company of Butchers.

The prestigious award recognises the meat company's strategic approach to attracting, developing and retaining new talent to the craft of butchery.

The award-winning Apprenticeship Programme, which operates across the Dunbia group, provides a mix of practical and theory-based training and a Proficiency Based Qualification accredited by FDQ (Food and Drink Qualification).

The scheme is managed by Northern Ireland's first and only IOM Accredited Master Butcher Mr Steven Dobson MB.Inst.M who says: "We are delighted that Dunbia's Butchery Academy has been recognised by the Institute of Meat and the Worshipful Company of Butchers.

"We have invested heavily in our Academy with the aim of providing the best possible mentored-based training and developing young raw talent into the best butchers in the country."

Steven who is a former graduate of Dunbia's Butchery Academy adds: "Our Butchery Academy is focussed on providing our trainees with long-term career opportunities and the potential to reach the pinnacle of the craft of butchery.

"We take great pride in the fact that a number of our young trainees have been individually recognised by the Institute of Meat and for me personally to become Northern Ireland's first IoM Accredited Master Butcher is a level of success which I could only achieve through the support of Dunbia's Butchery Academy."

Established in 2011, the Butchery Academy is an innovative and highly successful response to a skills gap that management pinpointed in 2008 and has strengthened links between this progressive company and colleges and schools in the region.