FoodCo Fellowship, a capacity building programme aimed at transforming high potential post-graduate students into top performing retail leaders, recently graduated the first batch of students from the programme.

The Fellowship, established in 2019 by foremost multi-channel retailer, FoodCo Nigeria Limited, recruits eligible candidates from top business schools across the country and exposes them to the fundamentals of management and best practice across a wide operational framework of learning and development. The students are also placed in real-life problem-solving situations to enhance their ability to think and evolve ideas for business decision-making.

Commenting, Adetoro Adewuyi, Human Relations Business Partner, FoodCo Nigeria, explained that the motivation behind the Fellowship was to address the dearth in skilled professionals at management levels in order to drive the growth potentials of the Nigerian retail sector.

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According to Adewuyi, “the Nigerian consumer retail segment where FoodCo operates is one of the largest in Africa. However, most of this market is in the informal space which leaves a lot of room for wastage especially in the areas of human capacity development and resource optimisation. This is the challenge the Fellowship seeks to address by nurturing a new generation of retail business leaders with the right career orientation, multi-functional skills and top-notch leadership training necessary to help Nigerian retail achieve its potential.”

Oluwatomilade Soremekun, one of the Fellows, described the training as an eye-opener into the rich prospects of the Nigerian retail industry which has stimulated his interest for a career there.

The FoodCo Fellowship Programme is designed as a 24 months rotational programme of which successful candidates selected from an initial three months internship phase are offered placement into the two-year programme. Modules include Sales/Production, Supply Chain, Corporate Affairs, Risk Control and Finance.