Sainsbury’s uses its loaf on training with new Bakery College

Staff requiring specialist skills pose a challenge for retailers when the store is the normal training ground.

Sainsbury’s is facing this challenge by taking its specialist bakery employees out of its stores for their training in order to speed it up and improve their skills.

The grocer opened its dedicated Bakery College at Whitworth’s Mill in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire last month. All 1,500 Sainsbury’s bakery staff will spend five days at the college, which is open 46 weeks a year. And its 400 bakery managers will participate in a two-day behavioural training course on how to coach and manage their staff.

The college will also help Sainsbury’s 300 bakery apprentices halve the time it takes it takes to complete the job-related qualification of the level 2 diploma in retail, reducing it from a year to six months.

Previously, all training was done in the stores and lectures were given at conference centres.

The new college trains 10 staff at a time and has exactly the same equipment as in-store to ensure the skills are transferable.

The same training materials are used to teach the entire bread-making process, from the biology of yeast to baking the bread and displaying the products on makeshift shelves. Training in one place at one time can improve its quality.

Sainsbury’s head of learning and development Sue Round says the college “provides consistent and uninterrupted training, where previously staff had to move from store to store to complete all aspects of their training”.

At the college, mistakes can be made in the baking process without any impact on product and quality can be assessed and questioned. The college provides focused training, whereas in stores there are other things such as sales, waste and customers to consider, says bakery coach Simon Herbert.

This improved training leads to a better customer experience. Round says: “Staff actually see the process of bread-making come alive with the mill and are better placed to answer the technical queries about the ingredients of our baked products.”

Consistent training means consistent quality of products, which the customer expects, she adds.

What does this investment in up-skilling mean for retention of staff? “By having this training experience, this makes them [staff] more loyal to Sainsbury’s and likely to stay with us,” Round says.

As well as improving the customer experience, staff can benefit in their own career development too.

Training outside of the store also allows better use of personnel in stores. “We don’t have to buddy up new bakery staff with trained ones in-store,” says Sainsbury’s bakery manager Dini Roman.

The training programme fits into Sainsbury’s wider commercial strategy of in-store bakery expansion and defining itself against the competition.

“Bakers need to have the artisan skills you have in a traditional high street bakery. Bread is an emotive category for customers, where well-baked products do encourage loyalty,” says Sainsbury’s category manager, bakery, Kim Brown.

Round concludes: “If the college programme works well, this is something to think about expanding across other product categories.”