Postgraduate Programme Sustainable Food Packaging Solutions

Description

Since food packaging plays a crucial role in reducing our ecological footprint, producers, consumers and governments are increasingly looking for sustainable food packaging solutions. Keeping a food product fresh and safe for as long as possible reduces food waste, but the material needed to ensure the longest possible shelf life is not always the most sustainable. Conversely, the most sustainable material may not have the best effect on the food in terms of food safety or quality. In this way, every food product faces its own puzzling question: which material and technology should we use to maximise shelf life, guarantee quality, be cost-efficient, sustainable, and safe? These issues are at the heart of the postgraduate programme. While the linked advanced master’s programme on Sustainable Food Packaging (www.sfp.ugent.be) adds extra integrative elements and a master’s thesis, this postgraduate programme allows students to gain knowledge in a more flexible way, and hands-on experience through an internship at an external organisation.

Program

Graduates of the programme will be able to:

1. acquire knowledge and insights in food packaging systems from both a theoretical as practical perspective (materials, equipment and packaging conditions) and their selected effect on the packaging chain and related aspects.
2. make evidence-based decisions in food packaging based on relevant and recent scientific evolutions in food and packaging systems.
3. support in the selection of a packaging system for a certain food product considering different perspectives.
4. develop interpersonal skills to participate and collaborate in multidisciplinary teams to control and develop advanced packaging systems.
5. professionally communicate inside and outside an organisation, when designing and/or optimising a food packaging system.
6. contextualise the impact of socio-economic tendencies on food packaging systems towards society and to adapt professional goals in a future perspective, this within an international context.
7. develop hands-on problem-solving skills in a professional food packaging related context.

For more info, visit https://sustainablefoodpackaging.ugent.be/pgop-solutions/