College graduates targeted for seafood sector

The seafood development agency, BIM, and University College Cork (UCC) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to provide structured industry placements for graduates to Ireland’s seafood processing sector.

Kieran Calnan, BIM Chair; Dr Michael Murphy, President, UCC and Jason Whooley, BIM CEO

The Seafood Graduate Programme will be administered by the Food Industry Training Unit in UCC and the Seafood Develoment Centre in BIM, to enable greater collaboration and facilitate the transition of graduates into employmejnt via BIM’s SDC innovation facility in Cork. The programme also includes a Graduate Masters Bursary to enable graduates undertake a research masters qualification of direct relevance to Ireland’s seafood industry.

“We have set ambitious targets under our corporate strategy to build scale in the Irish Seafood Processing Sector by 2017. When drafting our strategy we identified a deficit regarding third-level graduates taking up positions in the sector,” remarked Jason Whooley, BIM chief executive.

“We are delighted to partner with UCC and use our collective resources…A number of seafood companies have already expessed an interest in recruiting.”

UCC have previously worked with other food industries to offer new career paths, explained UCC’s President, Dr Michael Murphy. “UCC in partnership with BIM offers an opportunity for graduates both academic and hands on experience of the business of seafood.”

Graduates will work on projects involving product concept to market development and industrial production scale up. 

Ireland’s seafood sector is worth an estimated €810m on combined domestic and global markets.