A Suffolk poultry industry trainee is in the running for a national award next week.

Kristine Libiete, who manages a broiler site for Hook2Sisters at Laxfield, near Eye, is among three finalists competing for the 2016 Zoetis/British Poultry Council Trainee Award.

The accolade, which recognises talent, enthusiasm and commitment to training, is sponsored by animal health firm Zoetis and organised in conjunction with the British Poultry Council and the magazine Poultry World.

The winner will receive a £2,000 training grant and will be presented with the award by Farming Minister George Eustice at the British Poultry Council annual awards presentation event at the House of Commons on Tuesday.

The other finalists are Chloe Carter who rears broiler breeders for Cargill Meats on a farm near Tenbury Wells, Worcestershire, and Sean Harrison, who is a broiler farm manager for Faccenda Foods at Helmdon, Brackley, Northants.

“This is the tenth trainee award sponsored by our company and we are continually impressed by the high calibre of the entries,” said James Porritt, poultry manager of Zoetis in the UK and Ireland, who is one of the judges.

“The poultry industry might not seem an obvious career option for young people – but as the award shows, it does provide plenty of opportunities for early progress to reward talent and ambition.”

Kristine arrived in the UK from Latvia initially to help with childcare for her sister, who was living in Suffolk.

Once settled with her young son, she did a series of jobs , and then saw an advertisement in the village shop for an egg collector. She took up the vacancy with Hook2Sisters on a broiler breeder farm and then moved to broiler production where her current unit’s results are among the region’s top 25%.

“I love my job and we need to tell more people what a rewarding job this is,” she said.

Chloe comes from a family already working in the poultry industry. At school she helped her father rear pheasants and then did weekend shifts on a broiler unit where he worked.

Sean chose to go into poultry after becoming disillusioned by a career in the hospitality sector where he worked for eight years managing restaurants and bars, and then a gymnasium. He won a trainee role with Faccenda Foods – postponing his honeymoon to take up the position – and has progressed to manage a 120,000-bird broiler unit which also houses turkeys for part of the year.

The judges are James Porritt, Richard Griffiths, chief executive of the British Poultry Council, and Jake Davies, editor of Poultry World.