Rabobank in Association with Marks & Spencer Scholarship: Max Randall

Max Randall, 22, from North Yorkshire, is a final year BSc (Hons) Agri-food Marketing with Business Studies and recipient of Rabobank in Association with Marks & Spencer Scholarship.

“I applied for the Rabobank in Association with Marks & Spencer scholarship as it provided the best of both worlds; funding for tuition fees and great opportunity for a placement. I was particularly keen to apply, as I had limited knowledge of Rabobank or their work, and so I was interested to find out more. Previously I had worked at M&S stores for three years, as a Customer Assistant so wanted the opportunity to work for them in a different capacity and put theoretical studies into practice.

“I am extremely grateful to Rabobank and M&S for the opportunity, as it was invaluable and an enjoyable experience where I learnt an enormous amount; which has significantly helped my studies in fourth year. Post placement, M&S and Rabobank have been very supportive. Rabobank have been providing vital insight for my dissertation on Vertical Farming and ex colleagues at M&S providing support in my assignments.

Max talked about his university choice and mentioned his ambition is to re-connect consumers with their food. He said, “I chose to study BSc (Hons) Agri-food Marketing with Business Studies at Harper Adams University as it is a broad course, including modules that span the whole supply chain which provide a great understanding of the "field to fork” process and the agri-food supply chain. The course offers modules such as Animal and Fresh Produce Production, Farm Assurance and Quality (on farm functions), Food Quality Management and Food Marketing. Supply Chain Management link all these modules together.

“My long-term ambition is to re-connect consumers with their food, from ensuring consumers can cook to developing their understanding of the provenance and the work that goes into producing food. I think this will become increasingly important as urbanisation is increasing and consumers are becoming geographically further away from their food and making food “out of sight and out of mind”. This belief is where the idea for my dissertation on Vertical/Urban farming stemmed from.”