Kepak Sales Higher Apprenticeship - England in Kirkham

Kepak is one of Europe’s leading food companies with manufacturing sites across Ireland and the UK. Kepak’s vision is to be a successful, sustainable, future-ready Food Business with differentiation at its core, that is a great place to work. This vision is underpinned by our values of Responsibility, Ambition, Passion for Food & Teamwork.

Our Sales Apprenticeships are designed to give our apprentices a great start to their careers by teaching them the essential skills, knowledge, and behaviours, as well as real job experience, needed to succeed, specifically within our sales and commercial teams. The aim is to develop well-rounded apprentices who understand the full product lifecycle, from production to customer delivery, and who can support the drive of sales while ensuring product and price alignment.

• Customer Engagement: Develop and maintain strong relationships with customers by understanding their specific needs and delivering bespoke solutions tailored to their requirements.
• Sales & Negotiation: Support sales activities, from prospecting to closing deals, ensuring both revenue and margin targets are met.
• Product Development Collaboration: Work closely with New Product Development (NPD) teams to ensure that products meet customer specifications and pricing requirements.
• Market Analysis: Monitor industry trends, competitor activities, and market conditions to adapt sales strategies accordingly.
• Project Management: Oversee the implementation of sales and marketing plans, ensuring timely execution and alignment with company goals.
• Brand Ambassador: Represent the company at various industry events, maintaining a strong professional presence and promoting our brand values.
• Continuous Improvement: Identify and implement opportunities for process improvements, both in sales and operations, to enhance efficiency and effectiveness.

• Customer Orientation: Ability to understand and respond to customer needs.
• Commercial Acumen: Understanding our market drivers, profitability, and competitive forces within the industry.
• Negotiation Skills: Supporting the closing of deals that are beneficial for both the customer and the company.
• Analytical Thinking: Ability to analyse data and market conditions to make informed decisions.
• Resilience: Handle a changing workload and frequent travel with a positive attitude, learning from failures and continuously improving.
• Project Management: Effective in planning, executing, and overseeing projects to successful completion.

• Travel: This role requires travel to various customer sites and company locations, offering a dynamic and varied work environment.
• Work Environment: Initial placement in office-based environment for provisional induction and then client-facing roles.
• Career Path: Apprentices are expected to progress into Sales executive role, with opportunities to advance to more senior roles as their career progresses, based on performance.

Our Apprenticeship programme allows dynamic, motivated, hardworking, and passionate people, an opportunity to start their career with one of Ireland & UK’s leading food businesses. The programme lasts 2 years.

You can expect:

• To be fully immersed into our Culture from day 1, working alongside key industry experts and Kepak leaders.
• Gain an in-depth understanding of our brands and products, and our relationships with customers and consumers.
• To learn key aspects of our business, whilst you develop your skills and knowledge.
• The opportunity to develop personally and professionally through exposure to key projects, tasks and development activities that challenge you, all supported by a detailed learner journey and training plan.
• A dedicated mentor and development program to support you both on the programme and into a role that best fits your skills.

Start date: September 7th 2026
Starting Salary - £20,000 with an up to £2,000 increase at the start of Year 2 to £22,000.

Who are we looking for?

We are looking for hardworking and ambitious Apprentices, who want to learn and grow in a challenging and fast-paced environment, by performing real roles. You must be mobile and willing to travel throughout the programme to undertake development activities at any of our sites in the UK and Ireland.

• Industry Experience: Prior experience in food service, FMCG, or a related industry is beneficial, but not essential. General sales experience is less applicable unless accompanied by a strong understanding of our industry.
• Skills: Strong abilities in channel and customer strategy, account management, joint business planning, and commercial analysis.
• Business Acumen: Demonstrated understanding of the sales process within the food industry, including pricing, margins, and costings.
• Computer Skills: Must be proficient in systems like Microsoft Applications and be confident in learning new systems.

• Team Player: Collaborative approach to working with colleagues across various departments.
• Self-Motivation: Driven to succeed and comfortable working independently.
• Confidence & Assertiveness: Able to communicate assertively and stand their ground when addressing quality issues while maintaining amicable relationships with colleagues.
• Adaptability: Flexible and able to adjust to different roles, challenges, and environments.

We will be looking for alignment with our Core Values:

• Responsibility – Ability to work on your own initiative and take accountability for your actions.
• Ambition – You will have the willingness and confidence to challenge yourself to be the best you can be and be driven to succeed.
• Passion for Food – this is at the heart of everything we do, you must be passionate about every aspect of our industry.
• Teamwork – ability to build positive relationships quickly with people from all cultures and career stages is pivotal.

• Employee Discount Scheme
• Service-Related Annual Leave
• Discounted Health Insurance
• Educational Assistance/ L&D
• Discounted Meat Products
• Cycle to work scheme
• Employee assistance programme