Winner: Nestlé

Finalists: Chapel House Training and Consultancy, Olivedon (Gradintel)

YORK chocolate giant Nestle was named as the Best Business and Higher Education Link for 2014.

Judges identified that Nestlé has been able not only to recruit a range of graduates that will meet their future operational requirements, but it has also enabled students who would not otherwise have gone to university to gain that experience.

Judges also praised Nestlé for its broad curriculum on offer for trainees, and the company’s commitment to extend its programme to encourage greater participation of female students in the STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics).

Off the back of a study which revealed nine out of ten businesses felt young people left school ill-equipped for the workplace, Nestlé embarked on a programme of work to address youth unemployment by helping youngsters gain employability skills.

As part of that programme Nestlé, which has its UK confectionary headquarters in Haxby Road, has been working to foster strong relationships between businesses and schools within local communities by ensuring students, teachers and parents are informed of the options available and the benefits that each can bring.

The company has also been raising the profile of the food and drink industry to ensure that young people are aware of the opportunities on offer and understand the breadth of career choices available.

In addition, an innovative scheme that allows school leavers to ‘‘earn while they learn’’ by placing them in a salaried training role in the company at the same time as they study for a degree has been launched by Nestlé, in partnership with Sheffield Hallam University. The Nestlé Academy Fast Start Programme is the first of its kind in the food industry and has already received hundreds of applications for the 12 places on offer, more than half of which are in York.

The Nestlé Academy, created in York by the Nestlé Academy team, was launched in November 2011 to grow the firm’s pipeline of high performing talent, developing the future leaders of the business.