Career Heroes - Zak Smyth

Tell us more about you

I’m 18 years old and I’ve been a Trainee Butcher at Cranswick for just over two years. I genuinely enjoy going to work, having a routine and continuing to learn more about the profession.

Outside of work, I mostly spend time with my girlfriend and friends. We typically spend our time catching up on movies and TV shows, or playing games online on our XBoxes.

What kind of work do you do?

As a Trainee Butcher, I mainly spend my time in the Training Academy or in the production area. It’s a great environment, very comfortable and everyone always greets you as soon as you walk in, the team is so friendly.

I carry out pre-starts, which means I go in earlier than anyone else to walk around the factory and make sure that everyone will be coming into a safe, clean, and healthy work environment that is up to standard.

During the day, I receive training on how to do each of the jobs of a fully trained Butcher, such as boning out primals and trimming, and using machines such as derinders and whizzards.

It’s also part of my job to aid employees with any queries they may have, helping them out in any way I can. I try to do a little bit of everything. I really enjoy learning and developing in my role, it gets me more experience and will allow me to develop more in my field, so hopefully, I can go on to work in higher positions.

One part of the job that I didn’t realise would be so prominent, is how diverse the company and the people I work with are. There are a lot of employees whose first language isn’t English, so they teach me words from their language and share parts of their culture with me - I love it.

How did you become a Trainee Butcher?

I stopped attending school in-person shortly after Year 11 because it was closed due to Covid. Unable to carry out Year 12 in the way most people do, I didn’t sit normal exams for my GCSEs, instead they were based on predicted and teacher-awarded grades.

When I left school, I didn’t know what I wanted to do. My parents work in Cranswick, so they got me in for the summer for some work experience while I took the time to figure out what I was truly passionate about. But I actually really began to enjoy it and by the end of the summer, I didn’t want to leave.

That’s when I became a Trainee Butcher and since then I’ve continued to develop my skills and expertise because now I'm working my way up to becoming a Trainer; where I’ll be training other people in my position.

If you could do-over, What would you do differently?

I would try harder in school. I was always told that school days were the best days of your life and I really didn’t believe it at the time, but now I wish I could go back.

This is my first job so I don’t really know anything else, but I would have liked to go on to university and maybe enter Cranswick at a later stage and at a higher position.