Vocational training completed successfully
It doesn’t get any better than this: Hannes Schwanfelder has completed his three-year vocational training as a food technology specialist at Kräuter Mix with the perfect score of 1.0, the highest possible. In recognition of this impressive achievement, the 19-year-old was awarded the State Prize from the Government of Upper Franconia. At the award ceremony for the top graduates of the year, the Würzburg-Schweinfurt Chamber of Commerce named him the chamber’s winner with an unbelievable score of 96 out of a possible 100 points. Among those present to congratulate Schwanfelder on his knock-out vocational qualification at Kräuter Mix were his supervisor Jens Schubert and head of production Axel vom Berg.
“With this training and this grade point average, all roads are open to him,” said Jens Schubert. Axel vom Berg went on to explain that there was no doubt from an early stage that Kräuter Mix would be delighted to take Schwanfelder on as a permanent employee. Training complete, Hannes Schwanfelder will now join 15 other employees in the process planning department in taking responsibility for planning production orders and controlling the goods produced. Kräuter Mix processes around 29,000 metric tons of air-dried herbs, vegetables and spices every year across 34 production lines.
“The training has met all my expectations,” says Hannes Schwanfelder. “This profession is the perfect choice for anyone interested in food production, technical industrial processes and the fundamentals of science.” During his training as a food technology specialist, Schwanfelder learned to operate production equipment the size of a three-story home and gained experience in areas such as goods received, process planning, the laboratory and quality assurance. The practical experience was rounded off with 14-day-long block lessons at the vocational school in Kulmbach every six weeks.
Hannes Schwanfelder was fascinated by the theoretical knowledge and practical skills alike across all areas and demonstrated impressive dedication to achieve the top grade. But this is not the end of the road for Kräuter Mix’s new employee. When he has one more year of work experience under his belt, he is planning to enter a technical specialist on-the-job program. “I’m delighted that Kräuter Mix is supporting me in unlocking these new opportunities,” says Schwanfelder.
In fact, all the young people who successfully completed their training in 2022 have also been taken on permanently at Kräuter Mix. Industrial clerks Niklas Wendel and Luis Schmidbauer have joined purchasing and sales, respectively, while Christoph Link has joined the lab team as a chemical laboratory technician. After successfully completing his training as a food technology specialist, Marcel Sonnenleiter is now working as a machine operator in production, while Simon Guckenberger has become a warehouse logistics specialist.
