More than 120 people have applied for engineering apprenticeships at Wrexham-based manufacturer Jones Village Bakery.
The number is a stark contrast to the six applications that it received the previous year. The recent surge comes at a time when the company is welcoming a new intake of 10 new Level 2 bakery apprentices, which it hopes will create an “oven ready workforce of future leaders”.
Jones Village Bakery’s long-standing strategy of developing talent in-house has already been paying off, with most of its bakery managers and supervisors coming through the ranks. Since 2022 it has partnered with Coleg Cambria, which has two of its five campuses located in Wrexham, to deliver apprenticeships.
Learning and development coordinator Annabel Hall said the bakery’s growing reputation as a place to build a lengthy career had driven interest in apprenticeships through the roof – she predicts applications will surpass more than 200 this year.
“We’re really getting our name out there,” said Hall. “That comes from us engaging more with Coleg Cambria who support our training programme, doing a lot more open days with them and letting more people know about our apprenticeships.”
Currently eight engineering apprentices are at Jones Village Bakery, with two of them in their last year, while there are also six Level 3 bakery apprentices that have continued on from Level 2 last year.
Upcoming open days that the company will be attending include at Coleg Cambria’s Bersham Road campus on 10 February and its Deeside site on 12 February. It will also hold its own open evening at its headquarters at Wrexham Industrial Estate on 19 February.
Will Seward, 30 from Wrexham, is doing his Level 3 bakery apprenticeship at Jones Village Bakery. “I enjoy the course because it gets to a deeper level of what makes the bakery tick and I pushed to get on Level 3 because I felt it would be valuable to me,” he said.
“I think it’s good Village Bakery are investing in the staff and helping the future of the company. If a company invests in their employees, people are more inclined to stay longer.”
Last September Jones Village Bakery pledged to pay school leavers more than £5 above the National Minimum Wage for their age. It employs over 900 people across four separate sites in Wrexham and surrounding areas.
Having brought online a new £20m roll production line at its 140,000 sq ft ‘super bakery’ on Ash Road last year, it is currently creating a fifth bakery out of converted storage facility located on the same plot as its former site which was destroyed by fire in 2019.
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