Food safety remains a critical issue in the food chain. The Regulation (EC) No 852/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 29 April 2004 on the hygiene of foodstuffs requires all food business operators to implement a system based on HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points) principles developed by the Codex Alimentarius Commission. At the same time, organic food sector in the EU is dynamically growing. The number of organic food processing plants and the interest in the subject of food safety by their representatives is expected to significantly increase in the coming years. They need comprehensive knowledge on the legal requirements not only related to the production of organic food, but also in the context of food safety in the overall organic food production, processing and distribution chain. One of the problems faced by the university teachers seeking to teach about organic food safety is that the present teaching programmes and materials (publications, manuals, guides) are mostly targeted at the production of conventional food, and do not take into account specific conditions of organic producers. The number and range of educational resources available for organic food safety teaching in Europe is extremely limited. Therefore, the SAFE-ORGfood project will support cooperation between 5 European universities to develop, implement and widely disseminate innovative, comprehensive teaching materials on food safety in organic production, thus in a consequence, will improve the quality and effectiveness of university teaching in the targeted subject. The SAFE-ORGfood outputs will also increase the overall university teachers’ awareness of the importance of including organic food safety aspects in their everyday lecturing. The project will begin with an in-depth analysis of the food safety knowledge among organic stakeholders (O1), followed by the development of teaching materials such as i.e. handbook with theorical background for food safety in organic production (O2), ready-to-implement manuals with practical solutions on organic food safety (O3), e-learning materials (O4) and on-line video (O5) on food safety in organic production, and finally by implementing them in everyday teaching activities at participating universities and disseminating during 5 project Multiplier Events and other ambitious dissemination activities. Transnationality of the project will allow the biggest strengths of teaching approaches and strategies of participating universities to be extracted, analysed and put together in the project activities and outputs. The project outcomes and implementation actions will move the current EU higher education closer towards safe organic production and societal needs (also with respect to the sustainable development goals) as well as towards the needs of the strongly evolving European organic food market.
The project aimed at exchanging knowledge and experience on various aspects of organic food production and food safety, as well as on the teaching methods, among educators and researchers from selected European universities, in order to develop tools and materials that would help university teachers in effective teaching of organic food safety. In each of the SAFE-ORGfood partner countries food safety is considered as a critical issue in the food system, and there is clearly a shortage of educational programmes and materials to teach organic food safety. We planned to produce practical materials useful for the university teachers and other professionals in all participating universities and beyond. The aim was to develop i.e. practical food safety system documentation for selected products, a handbook on organic food safety, ready-to-implement manuals, e-learning materials and finally a set of videos. The aim was to make these all materials freely available, and thus to allow for their wide dissemination and use by students, teachers and various food sector stakeholders. In the longer term, it is expected that the project outcomes will significantly contribute to enhancing the quality of education in the targeted field.
There are numerous food safety aspects that must be taken into consideration by organic food processors. The Regulation (EC) No 852/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 29 April 2004 on the hygiene of foodstuffs requires all food business operators to implement a system based on HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point) principles. One of the problems faced by the teachers seeking to teach food safety for organic food is that the present teaching programmes and all materials (publications, manuals, guides) are targeted at the production of conventional food. At the same time there is an extremely limited number of educational resources available for organic food safety teaching, that would combine the subject of food safety with the requirements for organic food production. Therefore, the SAFE-ORGfood project consortium aimed to jointly produce comprehensive, innovative educational materials covering various aspects of organic food safety, to be widely used by university teachers in all countries participating in the project and beyond.