Think of a product or brand that you regularly use. If you have come up with brands like, Nurofen, Coca-Cola, Hovis, Dove, Dairy Milk or Finish then you're talking about brands within the Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) industry. This is a multi-million pound industry, incorporating many of the household products we know and love.

Fast moving consumer goods are the essential things we purchase and use in our everyday lives. They are termed ‘fast moving’ because they are the quickest items to leave the shelves at a supermarket and are traditionally high volume low cost items.Household, healthcare, personal care and food items make up a large bulk of the products in this sector however not exclusively. Paper products, pharmaceuticals, consumer electronics, plastic goods, printing and stationery, alcoholic drinks, tobacco and cigarettes can all be considered fast moving consumer goods.

The most successful FMCG companies are often characterised by their ability to produce the items that are in highest demand by consumers and that we develop a loyalty towards, think Dettol etc. These are companies such as:

Warburtons
Unilever
Sara Lee
Reckitt Benckiser
Procter & Gamble
Pepsi
Nestlé
Mars
Kraft
Kimberly-Clark
H. J. Heinz
General Mills
Colgate-Palmolive
Coca-Cola
Cadbury's
Aunt Bessies

You will notice that many of them produce items that are not necessarily necessities, however remain consistently in demand even in challenging economic times.There are numerous graduate jobs available within this sector. These are likely to be in Sales, Marketing, Research and Development, Information Systems, Finance, Supply chain or Human Resources.Graduates often enter via training schemes and complete a number of placements within the business. It is one of the most competitive areas for graduate schemes, with over 120 applicants per graduate role in recent years with the number set to rise.