Friday, 15 July 2016

Working in the chocolate industry

I have recently completed a year placement at Mondelēz International in Bournville. Not many people I have spoken to have heard of Mondelēz International except my foodie friends - Mondelēz  is the company that owns the famous Cadbury brand as well as Oreo, Philadelphia, Milka, Dairylea and Belvita as well as loads of other brands.


I was lucky enough to work with biscuits and cheese and some chocolate, so I thought I would explain my job role. I was working in Regulatory Affairs which involves looking at the legal side of the products I work with. For example; I looked at new packaging designs, New Product Development plans, all types of advertising from television ads to magazine articles, I completed research for the company, replied to consumer queries and tracked all the salt contents of our products - that is only some of the work I covered on a daily basis!

So it was extremely varied which meant I never got bored as I always had something new to do. The best part was learning about new products that aren’t on the market yet and might not be for the next few years and supporting the products, helping with pack design etc. In my first few weeks, we learnt about the roles and what was required as well as having a tour of the pilot plant and the factory which was great! I also went to Cadbury World, but purely for research purposes you understand – the free chocolate and tour was a bonus!

It was great as you can always smell chocolate and try new products that are either new to supermarket shelves or are about to be available to the public – sometimes we even got to try products that the company work on solely for other countries so this was interesting as we got to try items that we wouldn’t otherwise try such as chocolates from India, Greece and Turkey for example.

The people that work at Mondelēz International are all lovely and I am sad to say I didn’t get to meet an oompa – loompa! I learnt a lot during my placement especially the importance of a balanced diet – an apple in one hand and a Cadbury Dairy Milk bar in the other! J

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