Practical food training
Under operating conditions, students can learn about the technologies and produce products at the University of Debrecen's Agricultural Faculty at its own Food Innovation Center. Processes are followed from raw material to product launch.
The practical training and research base is also the Food Innovation Center of the Faculty of Agricultural, Food Science and Environmental Management. The 660 square meter facility has a complete meat, milk, mill and bakery, dry pasta production, vegetable and fruit processing department. Food engineer students complete their so-called weekly practices here for 4 semesters.
- Every semester, young people spend one week here. Second-year students can master the operation of the mills, the dry pasta producer, the vegetable, fruit processing, the bakery, and the technologies used in them. In the mill they mill flour, in the baking section they bake croissants, rolls, biscuits, and in the dry pasta plant, they make various dry pastries. They always work with seasonal ingredients in the vegetable and fruit processing plant, now they are making apple and making syrups, says Andrea Harmati, head of center.
They also spend one or two weeks in the meat and then the dairy departments, producing different dairy products: cheese, yoghurt, kefir, and in the meat section, they can engage in a variety of processing processes.
- Since we have recently received the final operating license, we can even sell the products, which are also fully monitored. Students follow the process from the raw material to the final product, including learning to prepare a product specification, product sheet, all the documents needed to market the product - Andrea Harmati adds.
In this semester 6 students per week, a total of 53 students spend their weekly practice at the Food Innovation Center of the Faculty, where they can implement their own innovation ideas thanks to modern technologies. There has been a growing interest in Debrecen for years in the field of food engineer, and the number of foreign students is constantly increasing.