Chemistry on Tour- our site visits to Heineken and M&I Materials
Chemistry in the real world 19th February 2019
In the last couple of weeks, over 30 of our chemistry students have had the opportunity to take a site tour around the Heineken brewery, and M&I Materials. This has provided them with a real insight into how they can apply their Chemistry degree within industry, and what a laboratory and non-laboratory career might look like.
Heineken Brewery
It wasn’t surprising that with the mention of a brewery, the first School of Chemistry tour to the local Heineken brewery was popular. Tickets were snapped within a few hours, and our first site tour was ready to go.
We headed out on Wednesday afternoon, taking a short walk over to the local Heineken brewing site. We were warmly welcomed by Emma, a recent graduate in Chemistry from Manchester. After a safety briefing (and changing into our very flattering high vis jackets and hats) we were ready to head out on the tour. First off, we saw the quality control lab, where the students recognised some familiar equipment, alongside machines specialised to beer testing. The students were particularly interested to hear about the openings of senior beer tasting roles within the company.
After that Emma took us on a comprehensive tour, from the very start of the brewing process right through to the finished product being packaged. The most impressive part of the tour was the sheer scale of production. The Manchester brewery runs as a 24/7 operation, providing over 70% of the UK’s Fosters consumption! Emma reeled off facts throughout the tour, such as the 8.2 million pints of beer produced every single day at the site.
Heineken offer 2 year graduate programmes, and whilst a chemistry degree is not essential, Emma explained it had helped with her innovation projects that she has been working on during her first 6 months working on site. She also informed the students that their invaluable range of transferrable skills built up over the course of their Chemistry degrees would prove useful in this type of Graduate role.
As Wednesday came round again, it was time to take a short coach ride over to Trafford Science Park for our second site tour; M&I Materials. We were welcomed by the Technical director Amanda, who presented an engaging talk about the 4 high quality specialist materials manufactured at their site. (To find out more about these products follow this link ; https://www.mimaterials.com/products )
We then got our lab coats and safety glasses on and had the opportunity to explore the site, with former Chemistry graduate Penny taking us through the processes that goes into manufacturing each of their products. We also got a sneak peek into Penny’s lab where she is currently working on a research development project for the company.
After the tours, the students had the opportunity to do a bit of networking with some members of the company, who were clearly interested in investing in the future graduates of the University of Manchester.
And with a group picture came the end of our second site visit!
We’d like to give a big thanks to the staff at both Heineken Ltd. and M&I Materials who made it possible for us to provide this opportunity for our students.
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