Management Development Services (MDS), which provides a graduate training programme for the fresh produce sector, has seen a surge in demand for degree-level apprentices from employers in the last eight months.
It placed 50 per cent more graduates in the autumn than the same time last year according to www.fginsight.com
James Simpson, managing director of Kent-based fruit grower and packer Adrian Scripps, recently recruited its first MDS graduate trainee.
Mr Simpson said: "We have been looking at how we can accelerate recruitment in the home market as we are finding it more and more difficult to recruit the right people into our business, partly due a declining interest in a career in the sector and to the limitations imposed by Brexit on employing foreign staff."