Foodie lands his dream job in TV show The Job Interview

A Northerallerton ‘foodie’ last night featured on Channel 4’s The Job Interview, when he successfully pitched to land his “dream” job as a sausage designer at Heck Foods in Bedale.

Calum Smith was seen going head to head with the UK’s top food scientists as it was the turn of Heck Food to put candidates through their paces, alongside some of Britain’s best loved and well know brands; Rolls Royce, Virgin Trains and Champneys.

Co-founders, Andrew and Debbie Keeble, were on the hunt for a new product developer at “Sausage World”, the Yorkshire headquarters of Heck Foods. Debbie said the job was about creativity and science, all wrapped up into a delicious package of food.

Smith said: “I saw the job advertised and realised I had to go for it. I have always loved food, my grandparents and parents owned bakeries and I’ve been cooking with my parents since I was a little boy. I have always loved experimenting with different flavours. The job at Heck was my dream job.”

There was fierce competition and in the end, it was a battle between youth and experience. One of the strong contenders was 55-year-old Stuart. Heck co-founder Debbie Keeble admitted on screen that Smith was the wild card, but that he made the shortlist because he hand delivered his CV to Andrew and Debbie’s family home.

“We were approached by the producers as they really like the ethos of Heck and could see that we were shaking up the sausage and burger market,” said Debbie.

“We wanted to share our “what the Heck” approach to inspire people to work in food, and also felt it was a great opportunity to recruit for our new product developer from the best of the food scientists that are in the country. We are constantly innovating, so we needed a mixture of creativity and science.”

Andrew said: “What was hugely impressive about Calum was his amazing palette. It was one of the most important parts of the role as we need someone who can really experiment with flavour. I was bowled over by Calum who was the only candidate who could identify all the flavours in the taste test.

Calum was seen on the programme being offered the job and has now been working at Heck for six months. “It’s been a fantastic experience so far,” said Smith.

“I’ve already developed and launched a new range of skinless sausages called Naked and been given the creative freedom to look at whole new ranges of vegan and vegetarian food.”

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