Isle of Man Meats is hoping to tackle a 'global shortage' by offering apprenticeships to wannabe butchers.
The 18 month course gives the students hands-on training to learn the essential skills.
Harry Lewis and Ethan Perry are the first apprentices to take it on.
They've been telling Amy Griffiths more along with Kelley Corlett from Isle of Man Meats:
Hi there I'm Amy Griffiths and I'm one of the journalists in Manx Radio's Newsroom and you're listening to Newscast. Hi my name's Harry. Hello my name's Ethan Perry. I'm 26. And I'm Kelly Callett. So Harry if I start with you first then so talk to me about why you wanted to do the apprenticeship. For me really it was just like learning a news skill and being that it's also like a dye and art as well. Just sort of yeah learn a little bit more what goes on. It's butchered learn like different knife skills and cutting and just yeah what goes on really. And how did you find else about it? It was at the Royal Agricultural Shams and just from there sort of talked and just learn a little bit more. And you've been doing it for about a month now how are you finding it so far? Yeah okay. Cold, cold work. Especially with feet and hands. And yeah okay. And what have you learned about so far? Just learn a lot of like how it's packaged and exported and just starting to learn like different sort of cuts and like cutting techniques. And did you have any previous experience with butchery? No none at all just like little bits at home but nothing like to this sort of scale. So what are you hoping to do next? Move on and sort of go into like a kitchen restaurant and learn a little bit like of a different like cooking side of things and bits. So this really would help me sort of to achieve that in a sense. And then Ethan if I come to you so how did you find out about the apprenticeship? I was already employed by all of my mates. I was here for about four months. I was doing a cooking room along with slaughter and the apprenticeship was offered and accepted the apprenticeship and it's just digressing on to knife handling and all what you'd expect here. What is it about butchery that appeals to you and as a career? There's a side of butchery that appeals to me is learning all the primal cuts along with trimming and everything included in butchery from the knife handling to the preparation also to the packaging. And what are you hoping to do once the apprenticeship's finished? Get fully qualified through the apprentice program which will take 18 months then will be hit with an end point assessment. So like you say once you get through the 18 month course we'll see what options are available for me. And would you like to stay within butchery? Yes I'd like to stay in butchery, plenty to learn, got all the cuts, knife sharpening, all that sort of nature stuff. And is there a bit more to it than you might have necessarily expected? It's not just learning what part of the animal is wearing, how to cut it? Yeah we've obviously deal with all the food hygiene, food safety awareness which you've recently been trained on so it's good to have refreshes on all that area of things as well. So Kelly, so talk to me a bit about why Isle of Man meets wanted to offer this apprenticeship. We know on the island that people's shopping habits have changed so you used to have your local grocer, your local fishmonger, your local butcher. Fewer butchers on island now, fewer stores. What we're aiming to do is to bring that back those sorts of heritage skills, those things that's really important to us as a culture, as an island. We are a UNESCO biosphere, we absolutely value what our producers send to us, so we want best in class to be able to process that. As I'm sure our butchers out there want to experience this new young generation coming through and working closely with us on that. And why is it you think that there are fewer people who are wanting to get into butchery now? I think the awareness of the potential that you could do it. So we are aware that there's apprenticeships on island like in nursing, like in engineering and construction, they're the ones that people know mostly about. What they're not as aware about is the likes of opportunities where you're a practical type of person, you want to use your hands in your day to day. So something like butchery is phenomenal skill to have. Same with fisheries, those two are in crisis. You don't have an awful lot of young people thinking about going into these industries. However, you can travel the world, you know, New Zealand are always looking for butchers. What kind of opportunities are there available than four people who complete this apprenticeship? Yeah, like I say, you can travel the world on this type of apprenticeship. The skills are in high demand because there is a global shortage of butchers in particular. So anything that we can do, especially on an island where we have a great population who are very aware of and have that nostalgia around going to the local butchers, having the chat and that community thing, anything we can do that's going to bolster that community, that sense of pride in our product, then we're really happy to perform in that way. And of course, if we're best in class, you've got the rest of the world looking to train here. So that's, you know, that's the dream down the line because we know that global shortage exists. And it's an 18 month course. So how can people find out more if they're interested? So we will be actually at the employment and skills fair on the 7th of November. So we'll be in the Villa Marina. The apprentices will be there as well talking about their experiences. Our trainer will be there talking about what that apprenticeship might look like. And we can talk about future careers now, not just off island but on island. So the meat plant is here to stay. We know that's really crucial and high on the agenda for government. Food sustainability is important. So we're really open to anyone just contacting us at workforus@iommeats.com, ask a question around apprenticeships and what the future might look like there. We will go and advertise at some point around the apprenticeship. The reason we haven't is because we've had people already like Harry and Ethan contact us to say we're interested in. And something like this, the world is your oyster as you say, but also I suppose there is probably a bit of pressure for you guys to try and retain some people at least. Yes, absolutely. We don't want that three ports for them to leave us too soon. So the intention is, yeah, we train them up and keep as many staff as we can. We've got producers out there who are producing fantastic livestock that comes through here, which of course are apprentices and the rest of our population here. Work hard to make sure the quality of what goes out is sustained. And for you guys, Ethan and Harry, do you envision yourself staying on the island once you've done the apprenticeship? Or are you hoping to be able to see what else is out there? Yes, so my intentions are is obviously to stay here at our man meets. Do you work where work is required? So I think for the long run my feet set here at our man meets is obviously return the apprentice. Music to Kelly's ear. Harry, what about you? Yes, I'm really just sort of stay here and learn different aspects like awful and like slow a line. Just sort of going as much possible out of this apprenticeship and further on down the line as well to sort of get a better understanding. Thank you for making it to the end of the Manxeradian newscast. You are obviously someone with exquisite taste. May I politely suggest you might want to subscribe to this and a wide range of Manxeradia podcasts at your favourite podcast provider. So our best bits will magically appear on your smartphone. Thank you. (gentle music)
