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ESCAPE: online education of business knowledge for food technology students
The Erasmus+ ESCAPE project has developed an innovative training programme on business competences, such as marketing, management, logistics, exports and sales, for food technology students. The training programme was taken by 23 Wageningen university food technology students and 23 university of Turin food technology students. The course was finalized with a training week for the students at the SIAL food fair in October in Paris. Wageningen students received 6 study credits after successful completion of the course.
The course is based on the flipped classroom mode of instruction and supported by an innovative learning platform, aimed at being used in different European countries. The course consists of 5 general modules and 1 country-applied module. Each module covers essential theoretical notions and practical activities.
The duration of the program was 8 weeks; the program ran from the first week of September to the last week of October 2018. Each module started with a pre-test to assess current knowledge of the students on the module theme and ended with a test to assess the student’s knowledge gained. The last day of every module focused on online presentations and discussions between students and lecturer.
The last week of the course was covered by an attractive and practical training session during the 2018 SIAL food fair: during five days, the students were taught and mentored by food sales professionals from selected companies, supported by Wageningen university and Turin university lecturers. The aim of this last week was to make students more confident with real-life work situations and apply the knowledge gained in the modules to provide innovative solutions to specific business related problems. Both food companies and students were enthusiastic about the results that were achieved.
Wageningen University lecturers were Frans Verhees (MCB) and Jacques Trienekens (BMO)
