Sysco GB has announced a major £500,000 Apprenticeship Levy Transfer Pledge to help small to medium sized enterprises (SMEs) and charities across the UK access apprenticeship training and develop essential skills in their workforce.

This new pledge builds on Sysco GB’s strong track record of supporting apprenticeships. Over the past four years, the company has successfully transferred £350,000 of its Apprenticeship Levy, enabling local employers to recruit new talent, upskill existing teams, and strengthen capability in key sectors. The latest £500,000 commitment marks a significant expansion of this support and demonstrates Sysco GB’s long-term investment in skills, communities, and the future of the UK food industry.

Speaking about Sysco GB’s commitment to building the next generation of talent, Katrina Simpson-Haines, Human Resources Director, Sysco GB, said: “As the UK’s leading foodservice wholesaler, Sysco GB works closely with thousands of SMEs – many of whom play a critical role in hospitality, catering, food production, and logistics. We know how challenging it can be for smaller businesses to invest in training and development. By pledging £500,000, and building on the £350,000 we’ve already successfully transferred in recent years, we’re enabling more organisations to access the skills and talent they need to thrive. Apprenticeships change lives, drive productivity, and create opportunities across so many of our communities, and we are proud to play our part in supporting our partners across the country.”

This investment aims to support long-term workforce resilience, helping businesses respond to evolving customer needs, new technologies, and ongoing labour shortages. The organisation is hoping that companies applying for its Get Set Supply, smaller supplier support programme, will also be able to benefit from the Apprenticeship Levy Pledge.

Sysco GB already delivers a wide range of apprenticeship programmes internally, supporting colleagues across operations, commercial, digital and engineering roles. This expanded pledge extends its impact beyond the business and into the wider supply chain.

Eligible businesses can apply for funding by visiting the Gov.UK Pledge page or by contacting the team at earlycareers@sysco.com.

If you run a cold storage facility, a food processing line, or a logistics fleet, you know that the “margin” isn’t just a number on a spreadsheet. It is a physical thing. It is the frost on a compressor, the time a dock door stays open, the half-empty truck running a return leg.

For decades, our industry has managed these margins through experience and grit. We rely on “Static Planning.” We set shifts based on historical averages. We set thermostats to -22°C to be safe, even if -18°C is the requirement. We run machinery until it vibrates just enough to tell the shift manager it needs maintenance.

But in an economy where energy prices fluctuate by the hour and supply chains fracture without warning, Static Planning is becoming an expensive luxury.

The good news? You likely don’t need a new warehouse or a new fleet of trucks to reclaim those margins. You just need to see the invisible.

 

The Journey Starts at “Day Zero”

There is a misconception that “Digital Transformation” or “AI” requires a massive, year-long infrastructure project before you see a single pound of return.

The reality is that value is often hidden in the “dark data” you already have but aren’t using. This is the Digitise & De-Risk phase, and it delivers value from Day Zero.

Most facilities are sitting on mountains of disconnected intelligence:

• Paper logs of shift handovers.
• PDF invoices from energy suppliers.
• Spreadsheets regarding waste kept by individual line managers.

The first step isn’t building a robot; it’s simply connecting these dots. When you move from scattered paper to a unified digital view, you stop looking at what happened last month and start seeing what is happening right now.

Often, the act of simply visualizing your data reveals “low-hanging fruit”—inefficiencies you can fix immediately without complex algorithms. You might spot that a specific blast freezer consistently draws 10% more power during Shift B than Shift A, purely due to how goods are stacked. That is an instant win, found on Day Zero.

 

The Sandbox: Making Mistakes for Free

Once your data is visible, the journey moves to Modelling & Simulation.

In the physical world, testing a new idea is risky. If you want to see if rearranging your racking will improve airflow, you have to shut down, move steel, and risk spoiling the product. So, usually, we don’t bother. We stick to the status quo.

This is where AI can help; rapidly pulling together a bespoke simulation to allow you to build a safe “sandbox” where you can test radical ideas without spending a penny or risking a single pallet. You can simulate thousands of scenarios—changing layouts, shifting shift patterns, altering delivery routes—to see exactly what happens to your throughput and energy bill.

You validate the savings digitally before you commit physically.

 

From Static Storage to “Thermal Batteries”

To understand the true power of this journey, let’s look at a concrete example relevant to every BFFF member: Energy Load Shifting.

In a traditional, static setup, your refrigeration plant fights physics 24/7. When the sun is hottest (and electricity tariffs are highest), your plant works its hardest. You are effectively buying electricity at its most expensive price to do your heaviest lifting.

However, once you have a digital understanding of  your facility thermodynamics, you can switch to Dynamic Intelligence.

The system can treat your frozen stock not just as food, but as a “Thermal Battery.”

1. Charge the Battery: At 3:00 AM, when electricity is cheap (e.g., £0.20/kWh) and the outside air is cool, the system “super-cools” your product down to -24°C.
2. Discharge the Battery: At 1:00 PM, when energy prices spike (e.g., £0.40/kWh), the system eases off the compressors. The core temperature of the product naturally rises, but because it starts lower, it stays safely within quality limits (e.g., never rising above -19°C).
3. Maximise your Solar: Where you have a solar installation use the weather forecasts and seasons to further optimise your load shifting for maximum savings.

You have maintained perfect quality, but you have shifted your energy spend to the cheapest hours of the day. This isn’t magic; it is simply using data to work with the energy market rather than fighting against it.

The AI is the Colleague, You are the Manager

The final destination of this journey is Optimisation. This is where AI acts as a “colleague”—a tireless assistant that watches your facility 24/7.

Step-by-step we can help build up to this concept of a “Digital Twin” which you can think of as a flight simulator for your factory. It supports the historical review of issues, the current monitoring of your plant and the planning of your future.

It doesn’t replace the human workforce; it empowers them.

• It tells the maintenance team: “Check the bearings on Conveyor 3, the vibration pattern suggests failure in 48 hours.” (Preventing downtime).
• It tells the logistics planner: “Traffic is heavy on the M6; re-route the Manchester delivery to save 20 minutes.” (Preserving fuel).

The gap between the “digital potential” of your facility and its current performance is likely the single biggest uncaptured value in your business. It doesn’t require a leap of faith to bridge that gap—just a step-by-step journey that pays for itself as you go.

The frozen food industry operates in one of the most hostile working environments on Earth. Necessarily well below minus 18 degrees, with many facilities at minus 25 degrees, visibility is often reduced by fog or breath, huge mechanical plant is running, and forklifts share space with pedestrians.

For decades, the industry has viewed Safety and Efficiency as two opposing forces.

If you want to be safer, you generally have to slow down. You add more checks, you introduce rigid exclusion zones, you limit shift times. Safety is traditionally viewed as a cost center—a necessary insurance policy that protects staff but taxes productivity.

But a shift in technology is flipping this equation. By digitising the warehouse for efficiency, we are finding that world-class safety features are appearing not as an extra cost, but as a “free bonus.”

The Eyes That Don’t See Faces

The biggest barrier to adopting digital monitoring in warehouses has always been the “Big Brother” fear. No worker wants a camera watching their every move, and GDPR regulations make recording people a legal minefield.

Darkonium have solved this through a “Skeletonisation” process . In this setup, the AI system processes the video feed instantly and discards the image of the person. Instead, it extracts a simple “stick figure” representation of their joints and movements.

It doesn’t know who the worker is; it only knows how the worker is moving.

This technology was originally developed to detect fallen passengers on buses, but it’s also a lifesaver in a freezer.

Use Case 1: The “Man Down” Event

In a loud, foggy aisle at these temperatures a slip or a medical episode can go unnoticed for dangerous amounts of time.

A static camera requires a security guard to be looking at the right screen at the right moment and colleagues may be in busier areas.

An AI looking at “skeletons,” however, never blinks. It understands posture. It instantly recognizes the difference between a worker tying their shoelace and a worker who has fallen and not moved for 30 seconds. It can trigger an alert immediately, dispatching help to the exact aisle.

The beauty of this? The same system tracking that skeleton for safety is also calculating optimal pick-rates for efficiency. One system, two benefits.

Managing the “Cold Dose”

Hypothermia and cold stress are silent risks. Traditionally, we manage this with rigid schedules: 45 minutes in, 15 minutes out.

But this static approach is flawed. “45 minutes” feels very different if you are vigorously stacking pallets versus waiting still in a cold draft because of a bottleneck.

Use Case 2: Dynamic Exposure Tracking

By combining digital tracking with a physiological model, we can move from counting minutes to measuring the actual “Cold Dose.”

The system can recognise that a worker has been stuck in a high-airflow zone waiting for a forklift. Even if they have only been inside for 20 minutes, their “Cold Dose” might be critical because they haven’t been generating body heat through movement.

The AI can alert the shift manager to rotate that specific worker out early. Conversely, it might safely extend the shift of a worker who is in a warmer zone and moving actively. This ensures worker health is protected based on biological reality, not just the clock, while maximising the available labor hours.

Predicting the Black Ice

Slips and trips remain the number one or number two cause of accidents in our sector. In a freezer, this is almost always a result of ice buildup—usually caused by humid air entering through doors and settling on cold floors.

Usually, we deal with this reactively. Someone spots the ice, or worse, slips on it, and then we clean it.

Use Case 3: Predicting the Hazard

A Digital Twin of your facility doesn’t just track boxes; it tracks thermodynamics.

If a dock door is held open for 20 minutes on a humid July day, the system knows exactly how much moisture has entered the air. It knows the airflow patterns of your facility. Therefore, it can calculate exactly where that moisture will settle and freeze.

It can warn the maintenance team: “Ice formation likely in Aisle 4, Bay 2 in the next 30 minutes.”

You can salt or scrape the floor before the ice even forms. This is the ultimate goal of safety: moving from reacting to accidents to preventing the conditions that cause them and of course it also retains the area as a productive environment keeping the optimum routes open and available at all times to maximise productivity.

The Bottom Line

The fascinating thing about these three examples is that they all run on the same infrastructure used to optimize energy and throughput.

• The cameras used for “Skeletonisation” are the same ones tracking inventory movement.
• The data used for “Cold Dose” management is the same data used to optimise labor routing.
• The thermal model predicting ice is the same model used to save money on compressor electricity.

In the new digital reality, you don’t have to choose between being fast and being safe. By deploying smart, privacy-compliant AI, you protect your margins and your people at the same time.

By Robert Sugar, Founder of Darkonium AI

Robert Sugar is the founder of Darkonium, a British startup and member of the British Frozen Food Federation. Darkonium specialises in helping manufacturers and logistics providers transition from static planning to dynamic, AI-assisted efficiency and safety.

https://darkonium.ai

From 30 March to 1 April, the Jan Zandbergen Group will be present at the International Food & Drink Event (IFE) at ExCel London. Come by their stand and discover the traditional Eastern flavours of Emperor’s Choice, the convenience of the delicious chicken products from Roosterz&Co and their many other brands.

You can find the Jan Zandbergen Group at stand N3928 in the Chilled & Frozen Foods hall.

Jan Zandbergen Group: your one-stop partner

Jan Zandbergen Group is a proud member of BFFF. Jan Zandbergen Group is the one-stop partner for industry, foodservice and retail. From meat and poultry products, to plant-based meat- and fish successors developed by their team of innovators at Future Food Group and perfect-sized portions steaks by Diviande. Whether private label or branded, they can cater to your every need. An example of what the Jan Zandbergen Group has to offer:

• Convenience meat & poultry concepts
• Whole meat cuts
• Portioned meat
• Organic meat
• Plant-based meat & fish successors
• Organic meat alternatives
• Hybrid concepts

From the import of raw materials to the development and production of complete food concepts: Jan Zandbergen has it all in-house. With the right resources and capacity, they provide innovative solutions in every area. This makes the Jan Zandbergen Group the ‘preferred partner’ within the meat and meat alternatives market.

Discover the Eastern flavours of Emperor’s Choice

Explore the full range of the brand Emperor’s Choice: delicious pre-cooked products such as Roasted Duck, Karaage, Katsu, Spring Rolls, and Gyozas. All prepared according to traditional recipes from Eastern cuisine. With the products of Emperor’s Choice, you bring these authentic flavours to your customers or kitchen.

Roosterz&Co: where convenience, taste, and quality meet

Looking for breaded, roasted, cooked, fried, or marinated chicken products? At Roosterz&Co, they have it all. All our products are pre-cooked and Ready-to-(H)eat for ultimate convenience. This makes them easy to use in (meal) salads for example, and simple to work with in the kitchen. All products are also Halal. New to the range is the Homestyle Chicken line: burgers, tenders, and nuggets with an artisanal, homemade-style coating and juicy chicken inside.

Jan Zandbergen looks forward to meeting you at stand N3928

At the stand, you won’t just discover our products: they also aim to inspire you with creative ways to use them. Stop by and explore the many possibilities the products of Jan Zandbergen have to offer.

Would you like to speak with one of their sales colleagues? Schedule an appointment in advance. The sales team is happy to assist you and help you find the right solution for any challenge, question, or request you may have. Schedule an appointment by mailing to sales@janzandbergen.com or visit their website https://janzandbergen.com.

Maintaining high standards of hygiene, safety and product integrity is essential in frozen food operations. Whether handling pallets, crates, drums or bulk ingredients, every movement within a cold store must support compliance with recognised food safety frameworks such as BRC, HACCP and individual retailer specifications.

Forklift attachments play a surprisingly important role in meeting these standards. By improving hygiene, reducing contamination risks and supporting controlled, consistent handling, the right attachments help cold store operators stay compliant while protecting both staff and products.

Supporting BRC Standards Through Hygienic Design

BRC Global Standards place strong emphasis on cleanliness, contamination control and equipment suitability.  Forklift attachments designed specifically for food environments directly support these requirements by offering:

• Stainless steel or food‑safe finishes that resist corrosion and withstand frequent washdowns
• Smooth, sealed surfaces that prevent debris build‑up and make daily cleaning easier and more effective
• Hygienic, easy‑to‑clean designs that help keep bacteria and allergens at bay

With UK‑manufactured quality and in‑house engineering expertise, Contact Attachments can also provide bespoke configurations to ensure equipment aligns precisely with site‑specific hygiene and compliance needs.

Reducing Contamination Risks in Line with HACCP Principles

HACCP requires businesses to identify and control potential hazards throughout the handling process.  Forklift attachments help reduce several key risks:

• Minimising manual contact with loads, lowering the chance of cross‑contamination
• Preventing product damage, which can expose contents and create hygiene issues
• Ensuring consistent, controlled handling to reduce the likelihood of spills or compromised packaging

Attachments such as clamps, rotators and drum handlers allow operators to move products safely and predictably, supporting the preventive approach at the heart of HACCP.

Meeting Retailer Specifications for Safety and Traceability

Major retailers often set additional requirements around hygiene, product integrity and operational control.  Attachments engineered for cold‑store environments help meet these expectations by offering:

• Cold‑store‑rated hydraulics for reliable performance at sub‑zero temperatures
• Pressure‑controlled handling to protect fragile frozen packaging
• Operator‑friendly controls that improve accuracy and reduce the risk of mishandling
• Compatibility with traceability systems, ensuring products remain intact and identifiable throughout the chain

By reducing damage, contamination and downtime, the right forklift attachments help cold‑store operators maintain the high standards demanded by BRC, HACCP and leading retailers.

Contact Attachments Ltd has been supporting UK manufacturers for over 50 years and offers a wide range of standard and bespoke material‑handling solutions for the food and drink sector.  To discuss how the right attachment can support compliance in your chilled or frozen operations, or to arrange a review of your current setup, contact the team on 01686 611200 or visit www.forklift-attachments.co.uk.