Profile
Kirsty Carey
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About Me:
Originally from the Isle of Man, I now live near Nottingham with my Husband. we love cooking, watching movies and exploring new places.
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My pronouns are:
she/her
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My Work:
I work for PepsiCo as a product developer for the Quaker Oats brand in the UK. I work on new flavours of porridge as well as any new innovations for the UK market.
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Read more
I work with lots of different teams (from marketing to factory operations) and am responsible for sourcing and approving new ingredients, developing recipes and ensure our new recipes can be made by our factories.
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My Typical Day:
I’m not a morning person so I tend to get up as late as possible. I drive a half hour into my office and have my cup of tea and bowl of porridge at my desk while I check my emails. I usually have a few meetings with the project team, might spend some time in the lab testing out recipes or making samples for others to try and then I also spend time writing specifications or getting paperwork done for approvals meetings. My work day ends at 5pm.
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What I'd do with the prize money:
We’ve been doing some really cool work on 3D printing food and I would use this money to invest in 3D printing pens to take into schools for our lessons.
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Education:
I went to school on the Isle of Man. I studied Maths, Biology, History and Fodd Technology at A-level. I had to drop Maths after 1 year because it was too difficult. I wasn’t very sure what I wanted to do at university but knew I loved food and my Food Tech A-level so I typed ‘food’ into the UCAS website and found a Food Science and Nutrition degree at the University of Nottingham and decided to apply. I studied in Nottingham for 4 years with my 3rd year being a year in industry working on Shreddies, cornflakes and golden nuggets cereals in the Southwest of England. I finished my degree during COVID and graduated in 2021.
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Qualifications:
GCSEs: Science, Additional Science, Maths, Further Maths, English Literature, English Language, RE, History, French, Food Tech, ICT.
AS levels: Maths, Biology, History, Food Tech
A-Levels: Biology, History, Food Tech
Undergraduate degree: BSc Hons Food Science & Nutrition
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Work History:
During Uni holidays I worked in a fish & chip shop and as a packer in a fudge factory. I also did some work experience at a cake shop.
My placement year (3rd year of my degree) was at a company called Cereal Partners who make Nestle branded cereals and lots of the Supermarket’s own brand cereals. I launched a Christmas limited edition mice pie flavoured filled mini shredded wheat and a new limited edition flavour of Shreddies, Raspberry and White Chocolate. I also did lots of cost-saving projects and nutritional renovations on things like cornflakes and rice crispies.
When I graduated I started working at PepsiCo in the global research team looking at ways to create new vegetable-based snacks.
After about a year, I moved into the Quker UK team and have been doing this role for about 18 months
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Current Job:
Product Developer, Quaker UK
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Employer:
PepsiCo
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My Interview
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What did you want to be after you left school?
Be a Food Scientist
Were you ever in trouble at school?
Never
If you weren't doing this job, what would you choose instead?
Marine Biology
Who is your favourite singer or band?
Rae Morris
What's your favourite food?
Bread
If you had 3 wishes for yourself what would they be? - be honest!
to always wake up feeling awake, to have enough money to buy a house one day and to be a couple of inches taller!
Tell us a joke.
What's so great about living in Switzerland? Well the flag is a big plus!
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