Quality Assurance

ANNEKA QUINCEY - JO SIMMS

QUALITY ASSURANCE SUPERVISOR  

The helping hand qualifications can give you when climbing the career ladder is well demonstrated by Anneka Quincey of fruit supplier JO Sims in Spalding Lincolnshire. Quincey has just completed an Advanced Apprenticeship in Food Manufacture at the University of Lincoln and was recently promoted to quality assurance supervisor at JO Sims.

The two year ‘technical pathway’ course, covered NVQ Level 3 in Food Manufacturing and certificates in Level 3 Health and Safety and Level 3 Food Safety, comprising units covering fresh produce, meat, dairy and quality assurance. Classes were not restricted to set days, so Quincey could effectively pick and choose when she went to college, depending on work loads.

“We knew that if a given day was no longer convenient because a major order was imminent, then we could change things round, which meant I wasn’t stressed or pressured trying to juggle everything,” she says. The most useful units of the course included Food Safety, HACCP, Quality Assurance and Fresh Produce

“The QA unit went into detail about different procedures, such as comparing the benefits of quality control compared to quality assurance, which have had a direct benefit to my job at JO Sims,” she says.

Quincey has now started a Foundation Degree in Food Manufacture with Quality Assurance and Technical Management, which combines distance learning with one day of college each week. “My ambition at JO Sims is to work my way to a more technical position like auditing, which is something I’ve enjoyed in my limited experience so far,” she says.