Apprentice Catering Assistant
Merkur Gaming UK Ltd
Newark (NG24 2EU)
Closes in 14 days (Monday 27 April 2026 at 11:59pm)
Posted on 13 April 2026
Contents
Summary
An exciting opportunity to join an experienced catering team, producing high-quality in-house meals for office staff based at our Head Office in Newark.
- Wage
-
£15,600 to £24,784.50, depending on your age
National Minimum Wage
Check minimum wage rates (opens in new tab)
A 7.5% annual bonus is available for good performance, along with performance-based pay increases.
- Training course
- Production chef (level 2)
- Hours
-
Monday to Friday
6.30am- 2.30pm
37 hours 30 minutes a week
- Start date
-
Monday 8 June 2026
- Duration
-
1 year 6 months
- Positions available
-
1
Work
Most of your apprenticeship is spent working. You’ll learn on the job by getting hands-on experience.
What you'll do at work
Duties will include, but will not be limited to:
- Preparing sandwiches
- Preparing a selection of cold items for the salad bar
- Stocking drinks fridges
- Contributing to menu ideas
- Preparing lunch items, including hot menu options
- Serving hot food to staff
- Maintaining a clean, hygienic food preparation space
- Cleaning the kitchen
- Carrying out stock checks to ensure dates are monitored
- Cooking and serving breakfast
Where you'll work
Blueprint House
Northern Road
Newark
NG24 2EU
Training
Apprenticeships include time away from working for specialist training. You’ll study to gain professional knowledge and skills.
Training provider
LINCOLN COLLEGE
Training course
Production chef (level 2)
Understanding apprenticeship levels (opens in new tab)
What you'll learn
Course contents
- Prepare and cook pre-portioned fresh and frozen meat, fish, and poultry to business standards.
- Prepare and cook fresh and frozen fruit and vegetables to business standards.
- Prepare salad vegetables to business standards.
- Cook poached, simmered, steamed, boiled, braised, stewed, baked, grilled, and fried dishes.
- Regenerate dried and frozen ingredients and dishes.
- Undertake stock control, storage, and rotation.
- Communicate professionally with colleagues, line managers, stakeholders, and customers.
- Work as part of a team to support service delivery.
- Follow specifications to produce, portion, and present food.
- Manage own time to ensure allocated tasks are completed.
- Use techniques for maintaining good mental health and wellbeing to support self and others, including asking for and giving help with daily tasks.
- Use feedback to improve own performance.
- Prepare and close down an area for service.
- Use problem solving techniques to resolve routine and non-routine issues within scope of own role.
- Maintain prep and par levels according to business need.
- Clean and maintain manual and electrical food-preparation and cooking tools, equipment, and technology.
- Follow standard operating procedures to select and safely use appropriate knives and boards for the task, for example red handled knife and red board for raw meat.
- Monitor and record food temperatures and manage allergens during preparation, cooking, holding, and serving.
- Apply hygiene management techniques to maintain a safe clean work environment, for example COSHH, personal hygiene, and uniform.
- Reduce the waste of resources, acting to measure and reduce plate waste, exercise portion control, and maximise yield.
- Comply with health and safety legislation, regulations, guidelines and procedures, including stress management.
- Follow equity, diversity, and inclusion legislation and organisational policies.
- Deliver to key performance indicators to support the production, performance, and budget within own area of responsibility.
- Use manual and electrical food-preparation and cooking tools, equipment, machinery, and technology.
- Prepare and cook pre-portioned fresh and frozen meat, fish, and poultry to business standards.
- Prepare and cook fresh and frozen fruit and vegetables to business standards.
- Prepare salad vegetables to business standards.
- Cook poached, simmered, steamed, boiled, braised, stewed, baked, grilled, and fried dishes.
- Regenerate dried and frozen ingredients and dishes.
- Undertake stock control, storage, and rotation.
- Communicate professionally with colleagues, line managers, stakeholders, and customers.
- Work as part of a team to support service delivery.
- Follow specifications to produce, portion, and present food.
- Manage own time to ensure allocated tasks are completed.
- Use techniques for maintaining good mental health and wellbeing to support self and others, including asking for and giving help with daily tasks.
- Use feedback to improve own performance.
- Prepare and close down an area for service.
- Use problem solving techniques to resolve routine and non-routine issues within scope of own role.
- Maintain prep and par levels according to business need.
- Clean and maintain manual and electrical food-preparation and cooking tools, equipment, and technology.
- Follow standard operating procedures to select and safely use appropriate knives and boards for the task, for example red handled knife and red board for raw meat.
- Monitor and record food temperatures and manage allergens during preparation, cooking, holding, and serving.
- Apply hygiene management techniques to maintain a safe clean work environment, for example COSHH, personal hygiene, and uniform.
- Reduce the waste of resources, acting to measure and reduce plate waste, exercise portion control, and maximise yield.
- Comply with health and safety legislation, regulations, guidelines and procedures, including stress management.
- Follow equity, diversity, and inclusion legislation and organisational policies.
- Deliver to key performance indicators to support the production, performance, and budget within own area of responsibility.
- Use manual and electrical food-preparation and cooking tools, equipment, machinery, and technology.
Training schedule
- The successful candidate will work towards achieving their Apprenticeship Standard in Level 2 Production Chef
- A dedicated work-based trainer will be assigned to the candidate to provide them with support and guidance throughout the course
- This is a predominantly work-based programme with College attendance required once a month
- All learning will take place at the candidate's place of employment/College and within their contracted working hours
More training information
Course outline:
https://www.instituteforapprenticeships.org/apprenticeship-standards/st0589-v1-2
Requirements
Essential qualifications
GCSE in:
Share if you have other relevant qualifications and industry experience. The apprenticeship can be adjusted to reflect what you already know.
Skills
- Communication skills
- Attention to detail
- Organisation skills
- Customer care skills
- Logical
- Team working
- Creative
- Initiative
- Non judgemental
- Patience
Other requirements
- Customer-facing role serving staff – must be comfortable communicating.
- Must be 18 or over due to licensing rules within the gambling industry.
About this employer
Blueprint Gaming Ltd & Blueprint Operations Ltd are sister companies working within the entertainment and leisure industry, and we share a head office in Newark. BPG is a leading UK-based game studio, creating exciting slot games for the global online and mobile markets. BPO offer gaming cabinets with game content for the AGC Bingo Casino & Pub sectors. Both companies are part of the Merkur Group, and we provide in-house catering for our employees at Newark as one of our company benefits.
After this apprenticeship
- Opportunity to progress into a full-time role within the business upon successful completion of the apprenticeship
Ask a question
The contact for this apprenticeship is:
LINCOLN COLLEGE
Kateryna Shevchenko
apprenticeships@lincolncollege.ac.uk
The reference code for this apprenticeship is VAC2000025972.
Apply now
Closes in 14 days (Monday 27 April 2026 at 11:59pm)