15 Years of Chilled Education: In Conversation with Gill

Chilled Education marks its 15th anniversary in September 2026. To mark the occasion, we spoke to Gill Harrison, the PR and communications specialist recruited by CFA Director General Karin Goodburn MBE Hon FIFST to help launch and build the programme in its early days …

Q: How did you first get involved with Chilled Education?

A: I’d spent my career in PR, working for organisations like the Natural History Museum, the Wildlife Trusts, Historic Royal Palaces and, most recently before this, as head of press for Sustrans in Bristol. Karin and I have known each other since school, and back in 2011 she was developing Chilled Education and needed a comms person to help get it off the ground. The timing worked, so I went freelance and joined her.

Q: What was Chilled Education actually set up to address?

A: A genuine skills gap. The press release I wrote to launch the project made the point that food science wasn’t seen as a career path, yet there were huge numbers of well-paid graduate vacancies going unfilled – starting salaries of around £19,000 to £23,000 at that time. Young people simply didn’t know these jobs existed, and a lot of teachers didn’t know much about food science either. That was the gap Chilled Education was built to close. We had an urgent mission – to inspire the next generation of food scientists. Karin had created and developed the programme, and it was my job to promote it with communications work ranging from media relations to face-to-face activities such as careers fairs.

Q: What did the early careers fairs look like?

A: One of the first was a small event in March 2011 at the John Innes Centre in Norwich where we had little more than a CFA branded tablecloth over a counter and Karin’s Glo Germ handwashing training posters and Nanobugs tattoos. I remember being inundated with Brownies wanting a go! From there we moved on to much bigger events like the Big Bang Fairs in Derby, where we had pop-up banners and, crucially, volunteers from CFA member companies who came along to inspire students with their own career experiences.

Q: How did you make food science click for students who’d never thought about it?

A: We kept it tangible. We’d bring a bag of salad, a chilled pudding, a fridge thermometer, and ask students how cold they thought a fridge should be. Most people had only a vague idea. So, we’d explain that if food isn’t kept at the right temperature, bacteria grow and the food spoils, which is also why teaching people about reducing food waste and handwashing matters. Once they understood who makes the ready meals and sandwiches in the supermarket chilled aisles – companies like Greencore, which are largely unknown – the penny would drop regarding potential careers. It stopped being abstract and became a real industry with real jobs.

Q: Were teachers excited about the resources you developed?

A: Very much so. Karin had already developed a range of lesson plans from KS1-4 with specialist teachers and the D&T Association, and we had our supporting resources including glo-germ kits and Nanobugs . We’d started working with design and technology teachers but quickly realised we needed to reach science teachers too. Which is why, through the Association for Science Education, we connected with innovative science teacher and author Sam Holyman. Together we developed even more food lesson plans from a science rather than just design and technology perspective – plans that teachers told us they simply didn’t have anywhere else.

We also built a careers pack featuring real people from the industry – technical directors, graduates, everyone in between – so teachers could point to an actual person and say, this is what the job looks like. That was something genuinely useful, not just another glossy leaflet.

Q: Was there a moment when you really felt the impact of the programme?

A: The face-to-face events, without question. There’s nothing quite like standing in front of a room of students and watching their faces light up when something finally makes sense to them. CFA was the major funder of the University of Nottingham’s food science summer school for a number of years, and we know of numerous student who came to a talk Karin gave at her school, went on to attend a summer school, and later moved into the industry.

Likewise with talking to teachers. The positive response at those careers fairs was confirmation that Chilled Education was not just useful but vital in the classroom. Interviewing industry colleagues about their careers was also a highlight. I could hear a genuine passion for their subject which reinforced my belief in the importance of Chilled Education and the many life-changing career opportunities on offer.

Q: What was the biggest challenge?

A: Getting past teachers’ assumptions about what food science actually is. At events like the Association for Science Education conference, chemistry and biology teachers would engage readily with our ideas for using food as a way of teaching scientific principles, but physics teachers often walked straight past, assuming food had nothing to do with their subject. It absolutely does – thermal processing, chilling process design lines, automation, even the physics of coating a biscuit in chocolate.

Q: After 15 years, what would you say to teachers and students today?

A: That it’s more relevant now than it has ever been. People will always need food, and the industry still needs people to grow and make it and verify safety. With growing conversation around vocational routes and degree apprenticeships, a food science degree is no longer the only way in. Chilled Education’s job has always been to make sure students and teachers know these career paths exist in the first place – and that job matters just as much today as it did in 2011.