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National Meat Industry Training Advisory Council Limited

AMPC National Apprentice of the Year

The Australian Meat Industry Council (AMIC) acknowledges the importance of attracting and retaining young people in our industry and we recognise that encouraging young people to take up a butchery apprenticeship is a key starting point to a career in the meat industry.

A career in the meat industry has many factors and can lead to employment opportunities within the different sectors of our industry and further into areas of supervision, management and business ownership.

The National Retail Council of AMIC introduced the National Apprentice of the Year competition several years ago as a means of allowing apprentices to demonstrate their butchery skills and knowledge in a competition environment.

Apprentice butchers in each State have the opportunity to enter the competition at their State level with each of the State winners then competing at a national level for the title of ‘AMIC National Apprentice of the Year’.

The national competition also includes a number of days in the host State of the competition where apprentices spend time on a number of professional development activities. This includes time working in a retail butcher shop and fine tuning their competition skills at a TAFE Institute.

To date, the competition has centred on each apprentice developing a range of value added products from the contents of a mystery box. Apprentices have to demonstrate their butcher skills during the hour and a half that they are allocated once the mystery box is opened.

While it can be a pressured competition environment it continues to amaze the competition judges the level of skills and the variety of value added products that apprentices produce.

The apprentice competition has evolved over the years and during 2016 The AMIC National Retail Council has determined that the competition will also include a theory and practical component in addition to the value added mystery box.

Apprentices who are interested in the competition should contact the AMIC office in your State or visit the AMIC website www.amic.org.au