In 2018, a leading public university from Central Europe partnered with an international consortium of companies, universities and research institutes to design highly-engaging, industry-focused blended-learning experience for food industry professionals. This session presents best practices from multiple rounds of a new product development training conducted in 2018-2023.
EIT Food is one of the largest and most impactful food-related initiatives worldwide. EIT Food connects partners from leading businesses, universities and research centres across Europe. It is a people-centric and resource-smart transformer of the European food system, driving consumer confidence and improved global health. EIT Food through its various activities, including numerous educational programs, wants to transform Europe’s food system, making it better for people’s health and better for the environment. EIT Food is a pan-European partnership designed to empower innovators, entrepreneurs and students to develop world-class solutions to food challenges, accelerate innovation, create jobs and increase Europe’s competitiveness.
EIT Food offers a mix of online learning, blended learning and in-person courses at different locations across Europe; ranging from short-term courses, summer schools, online learning, PhD programs, degree-awarding Master’s programmes to certified professional education. Courses are taught at leading higher education institutions by seasoned industry leaders and renowned experts in entrepreneurship, innovation and Food Systems. The mission of the EIT Food Education is to drive social change, power economic growth and nurture a highly qualified workforce. All its Education Programs support the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations and EU Strategies and are designed to solve real-world challenges and are based on learning-by-doing.
This session is planned with the view to present best practices from multiple rounds of one of the EIT Food's professional education programs - new product development trainings conducted in 2018-2023, namely: Summer school on new product development for the food industry, and NPD Skills: learn through experience [hereinafter: NPD Skills].
The NPD Skills workshops brought together food professionals from different backgrounds and countries. It offered a professional blended-learning training aimed to encourage the development of pioneering product ideas in the food industry in RIS countries. The workshop was designed to teach the tools, techniques and best practices developed to support the NPD process and enable participants to learn through experience.
The workshop addressed contemporary challenges related to new product development in the food industry. It was based on innovative approaches to teaching and learning and was prepared and delivered by experts from industry, universities and research institutes, namely University of Warsaw, Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Aarhus University, PepsiCo International, Elea, BeYou, Campden BRI Hungary Ltd. and CSIC - Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, supported by EIT Food CLC North-East. It enabled participants to develop their skills thanks to live food processing sessions, sensory evaluations, video case studies, virtual tours, teamwork, simulation-based exercises, and insights from real case studies of various global companies and startups. On top of this, NPD Skills offered room to network and present research results during the knowledge-sharing session, which was highly interactive and appreciated by the participants.The NPD Skills workshop was a unique opportunity to learn through experience, meet professionals working in the food industry and expand knowledge in the field of new product development.
The workshops were a blended-learning training conducted as an international event, thus all communication has been in English.