Winning the Seasonal Talent Battle in Manufacturing
The Future of Food: Trends, Tech and Changing Tastes in 2025
The UK food and drink manufacturing industry is always moving and in 2025, the pace feels faster than ever. With new technology, shifting consumer demands and constant pressure to stay competitive, manufacturers are being asked to do more than just keep up. They need to be forward-thinking, agile and ready to adapt.
At True North Talent, we spend our time speaking to leaders, candidates and businesses across the industry. That means we’ve got a front-row seat to the changes shaping the sector right now.
In our fourth article, we look at recruitment and workforce planning and how it affects industries.
Winning the Seasonal Talent Battle in Manufacturing
Seasonal demand is part and parcel of working in the food and drink manufacturing industry. Whether it’s Easter confectionery, summer BBQ favourites, or the all-important Christmas peak, production often needs to scale up quickly to meet surging consumer demand. The challenge? Making sure your workforce can flex to match these spikes without sacrificing quality, safety or efficiency.
So how do you plan ahead?
1. Forecast demand early
It all starts with data. Looking at past sales patterns, working closely with your retail partners and factoring in market trends gives you a clearer picture of when demand spikes will hit. The earlier you can predict, the better you can plan workforce requirements.
2. Build a flexible workforce model
Relying solely on permanent staff can be limiting during seasonal peaks. Many manufacturers now build a blended workforce, combining core permanent employees with interim or temporary hires. This not only ensures you’re covered when demand increases but also helps avoid burnout among your permanent teams.
3. Partner with specialist recruiters
Finding experienced, reliable interim professionals at short notice is a challenge. That’s where recruitment partners like True North Talent step in. With access to a ready pool of candidates with expertise in the food and drink sector, we help clients bring in skilled interim managers across production, operations, technical etc., exactly when they’re needed.
4. Invest in training and onboarding
Seasonal staff often need to hit the ground running. Clear onboarding processes, safety training and upskilling opportunities can reduce ramp-up time and improve productivity. Investing in training not only supports efficiency but also boosts retention of seasonal workers year after year.
5. Embrace technology and automation
Workforce planning isn’t just about people. Smart scheduling tools, AI-driven demand forecasting and automated production systems can reduce pressure on staffing while ensuring you stay agile.
The bottom line: Seasonal demand spikes don’t need to cause operational headaches. With the right mix of forecasting, flexible hiring and strategic recruitment partnerships, food and drink manufacturers can stay ahead of the curve. At True North Talent, we work closely with our clients to design recruitment solutions that flex with their seasonal cycles, ensuring you have the right interim leaders and senior managers in place to keep operations running smoothly when demand peaks.
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Amy Griffith
Managing Director
Amy Griffith is Managing Director of True North Talent and a leading specialist in Food and Drink Manufacturing recruitment, with 8 years’ experience in permanent and interim hiring, executive search and talent strategy, supporting organisations and senior leaders across the UK food, drink and manufacturing sectors.
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Your Engineering Manager resigns on a Friday afternoon. By Monday you've briefed three agencies. By Wednesday you're looking at twenty-two CVs, and eighteen of them have never set foot in a food environment. You've now lost most of a week and you're no closer to filling the role. The line is still running, the planned maintenance schedule is already slipping, and your Operations Manager has picked up a second job on top of their own. This is the point where the difference between a generalist agency and a specialist recruiter stops being a procurement preference and starts costing you output.
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Your Technical Manager hands in their notice on a Monday morning. There's a BRCGS audit eight weeks out, a customer visit before that, and a quality management system only one person on site properly understands. By Monday afternoon, you're already behind. Production has its own version. A shift manager goes off sick with no return date. A supervisor steps up to cover, and three weeks later that supervisor is taking calls from an agency, because the extra responsibility arrived without the extra money. Both situations force the same decision. Do you run a permanent search and live with the gap, bring in an interim, or do both at once?
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