College course leads to TV career

A former College student is making a name for herself behind and in front of the camera, working on a number of food-related TV programmes.

Kate Moore studied on the College's BSc (Hons) Food and Consumer Management programme between 1998 and 2001, then worked as a home economist for Nestle and Virgin Airways.

Most recently, she has been putting her skills as a home economist to good use, working behind the scenes on the ever-increasing number of cookery-based programmes on television.

She said: "In January 2007, I got a job on a TV show called Great Food Live on UKTV Food as lead home economist. It was a live, two-hour programme, five days a week, so there was a lot of pressure, but it was a chance to meet some of the finest chefs in the business.

"After that, I worked on Something for the Weekend and Ever Wondered About Food? for BBC2, Daily Cooks on ITV1, The F Word on Channel 4 and Head to Head, which was a combined food and travel show for the BBC."

Her most recent role was as home economist and presenter on BBC Three's Kill It, Cook It, Eat It, which follows the production of food all the way from the abattoir to the plate, and then asks guests if they still want to eat the meal once they have seen how it was prepared.

Kate now plans to launch a cookery book based on the programme and is also working on an idea for her own series next year, called Real Food, Real People, which would promote recipes that anyone could make using simple ingredients.

She said there were many opportunities in the media for those with the sort of food knowledge her College course had provided.

She added: "Everything I studied at the College was directly relevant to the work I do now. The modules we did in areas such as styling, marketing and technology were all superb and I still refer back to them.

"Working in the media is a very exciting job, and as a freelancer the pay is very good - you can take home up to £1,500 per week and although the hours are long, you can take long holidays, so it’s a good life for someone in their 20s. The big food productions tend to follow each other, rather than all taking place at once, so you can move from one show to the next and keep busy all year."