Our Award-Winning Chef Apprenticeship Programme provides budding chefs of any age with an accredited training pathway which will enable you to develop unique knowledge and skills.
Throughout the programme you will have the opportunity to work your way around the various sections in our award-winning PIG kitchens, overseen by Group Apprentice & Kitchen Coordinator Alexa Bartlett-Woodnutt.
Working with the Head Chef and Kitchen Brigade, you will learn how to work in an environment which is driven by the availability of ingredients produced on the premises and within a 25-mile radius of each PIG. Creating a menu of uncomplicated and simple British garden food, true to the micro seasons with the emphasis squarely on fresh, clean flavours.
You will be assigned a Chef Assessor who will guide you through the qualification, with regular visits and observations. All your portfolio will be on an online tracking programme – you can upload your work with the support of the kitchen team. You will also get to experience all the things that make THE PIG unique, such as…
You will learn how to design, lay out and manage a Kitchen Garden including the growing of produce, utilising fruit cages, poly tunnels and green houses. You will develop skills and knowledge around planting, rotation and harvesting seasons, all working hand-in-hand with the Head Kitchen Gardeners.
You will learn about wild plants and foraging on both sea and land with the help of foraging professionals, some of whom have over 40 years’ experience!
You will learn the skills required to run a smallholding.
You will attend bee keeping courses – in addition to maintaining the bees on site! – to enable you to understand the production of honey and the importance of bees to the environment.
You will learn butchery techniques and work alongside our very own butcher to produce both popular and more unusual cuts of meat.
Working with a traditional sawdust fuelled smoker, you will learn techniques for smoking salmon, fish, salt, chillies and herbs.
Working with THE PIG’s Chef Director James Golding and Master Butcher Alan Bartlett, founders of the Hampshire based company A Pinch of Salt, you will learn the processes involved in the production of a large range of produce ranging from 18-month air dried hams to red wine salamis and chorizos.
Of course, not all of your time will be spent in the kitchen! You will have the opportunity to meet up with other Apprentice Chefs and have some great experiences. This year we made a variety of bread with Master Baker Richard Bertinet, had chocolate training with Top Chocolatier Mark Tilling, and even made cheese at a local dairy Lyburn. So not your average apprenticeship!
Back to the more serious stuff, we also cover everything you need in the way of Food Hygiene, Manual Handling, COSHH, Fire Training, and even aspects of the running of the hotel.
In the words of Alexa Bartlett-Woodnutt, Group Apprentice & Kitchen Coordinator… ‘I wish this apprenticeship was around when I was training to be a chef!’
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