Careers:TRAINING

Staff training — is there a need? This was the question that the Chairman of the National Institute of Fresh Produce posed at a session of the 47th National Convention of the Retail Fruit Trade Federation Conference at Blackpool. He asked delegates to remember the excitement and confusion of their first day at work. He suggested that training — to which he was committed through the Institute, which was in itself an example of practical co‐operation between different sectors of the fruit trade — would speed the process by which young people entering the trade gained from the experience of others, and help to ensure that they stayed. Practical help has been given through the publication of a series of booklets, including The introduction of new staff, on the distribution of fresh produce, wholesaling and — introduced for the first time at the Conference — retailing. The NIFP has also worked with the London City and Guilds to produce a specific skills scheme. This was currently being tried out in companies and would be published to provide a simple, straightforward training scheme for young people to follow in a retail shop.