Award-winning brewery Tiny Rebel is toasting the benefits of Apprenticeships as the business grows a UK and international following for its beers.
The youngest and only Welsh brewery to have won Champion Beer of Britain, Tiny Rebel is based in Rogerstone, Newport where it has more than 120 employees. Most employees were furloughed during the Covid-19 lockdown but are gradually returning to work as Wales and the UK begins to bounce back.
The company is using Apprenticeships to upskill young brewing, packaging and warehouse staff who are encouraged to grow with the dynamic business. The company has six Apprentices who are working towards Apprenticeships in Food Industry Skills, Brewery Industry Skills and Food Management at Levels 2 and 3.
Earlier this year, an Apprenticeship accolade was added to the Tiny Rebel’s growing list of honours when it won the award for Apprenticeship Engagement for Medium-sized Employers at Cambrian Trainings annual Apprenticeship, Employment and Skills Awards.
The company describes Apprenticeships as “a recipe for success” and “an investment in the future”
“It’s an opportunity to give our current staff a complimentary education alongside our in house training programme and it fits really well with our business and our priorities as a company.”
“Our ethos is to give staff the opportunity to learn new skills and better themselves while in full-time employment,” explains Mark Gammons, Tiny Rebel’s head of operations. “Our staff are the most important thing in our business.
“Using the Apprenticeship Programme allows them to grow with us, not just professionally but also personally. The addition of the Apprenticeship programme to our business almost three years ago has been a great success.
“It’s an opportunity to give our current staff a complimentary education alongside our in house training programme and it fits really well with our business and our priorities as a company.
“The Apprenticeships allow time for the guys to understand areas of the business that they do not focus on as firmly in their daily work. It gives them a chance to learn the fundamentals that enables them to focus more firmly on the complexities of beer production later on.
“We are still in the early stages of our Apprenticeship journey, but we believe this is a marathon and not a sprint. We are in this for the long term as we can see the benefit of upskilling our staff.
“Staff that have been on the programme are far more knowledgeable as a result of the training and this is a benefit to the business not only in productivity but also in ideas coming from the Apprentices.
He recommends Apprenticeships to other Welsh businesses and praises Cambrian Training for working closely with Tiny Rebel on their delivery. “Training officer Mark Llewellyn and the rest of the company are fantastic to work with,” says Mark.
“Approachable and pragmatic support and tuition has been delivered throughout. Working with Cambrian Training has provided the support and time to enable the building blocks of understanding to be elucidated.
“The andragogy provided by Cambrian Training has pushed all those enrolled to bigger and better things. The way the programme is delivered with our processes and procedures at the forefront has to be a recipe for success.”
Beginning life in a garage in 2012, Tiny Rebel has taken the real ale world by storm, winning the Champion Beer of Wales in 2013 and 2014, Best Beer in Britain in 2015 and SIBA Brewery Business of the Year and International Beer Challenge UK Brewer of the Year 2016.
“The programme prepares staff to step up into more senior roles which falls in line with our business growth plan. By investing in staff training now, we are investing in the future of our business.”
“Approachable and pragmatic support and tuition has been delivered throughout”
The Apprenticeship Programme in Wales is funded by the Welsh Government with support from the European Social Fund.
For more information, please contact Katy Godsell, Cambrian Training Company’s marketing manager, on Tel: 01938 555 893 option 4 or Duncan Foulkes, public relations adviser, on Tel: 01686 650818.
