Denmark scales up to educate food talents of the future

New initiatives at Danish educational institutions hope to bring future talents within food and agriculture into the food industry. Morsø Agricultural School expands to a bigger college in 2019, with the name Nordic Food College and Technical University of Denmark just opened a new Foodlab with one of the world’s most innovative persons in the lead.

Located in the North-Western part of Denmark in Jutland, the new Nordic Food College hopes to educate the new stars within food and gastronomy with seven programs. “We are moving several programs from other parts of the country to a new educational environment, called the Nordic Food College. We plan to build about 900 square meters of kitchen facilities that will house food education,” says Director of EUC Northwest, Hans Jeppesen. The seven programs are farmers, landscapers, bakers, butchers, waiters, nutrition assistants and gastronomy.

“Our ambition is that when you are in the kitchen and working with the food you can physically look at the fields where the crops are grown and the animals walk. Students get an understanding of what is happening in the field and how the farmer works and vice versa,” says Hans Jeppesen.

The desire is to educate young people, and to give them a great understanding of quality in food production. Nordic Food College will accommodate up to 150 students and will be ready to receive students from August 2019.

New head of Technical University of Denmark’s (DTU) food laboratory will shape the talents of the future

The DTU’s laboratory north of Copenhagen also focuses on future food talents. With a new Foodlab, which opened in September this year, the new Italian leader Roberto Flores hopes students’ will revolutionize food traditions.

Insects have been the red thread through Roberto Flores’s career. His interest in insects has paved the way from agricultural studies at the University of Sardinia to avant-garde gastronomy in the culinary think tank Nordic Food Lab in Copenhagen, which Claus Meyer and René Redzepi is behind. Now he is hired to run DTU’s new Foodlab, where future food researchers will unfold under his leadership.

FoodLab opened September this year, and the aim is to get students of DTU’s faculties to work together on food innovation. The Foodlab wants to be a place where startup companies can grow, and collaboration between students and the Danish food arena can develop.

Source: Fødevarewatch

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