Tracks leading into the future

By: Budai Klára Date: 2022. 09. 07. 09:39

At the end of May the Ministry of Agriculture and GS1 Magyarország organised “The role and significance of tracking in the baking and confectionery industry”.

Dr. Beáta Olga Felkai
head of the food economics and quality policy department
Ministry of Agriculture

Dr Beáta Olga Felkai, head of the food economics and quality policy department at the Ministry of Agriculture was the first speaker. She told that food export increased greatly between 2010 and 2021, and the efficiency of production also grew in this period. The nearly 90,000 people who are working at the food sector’s almost 4,000 companies generate sales revenue above HUF 4,000bn. Ms Felkai also talked about the Digital Food Industry Strategy (DÉS): “Digitalisation, and especially traceability, is vital across the whole supply chain. We plan to announce tenders for speeding up the food sector’s digitalisation process. This strategy will also involve making the necessary related changes in secondary and higher education.”

Controls are absolutely necessary

Dr. Ferenc Helik
head of the directorate of priority cases
NÉBIH

Dr Ferenc Helik, head of the directorate of priority cases at the National Food Chain Safety Office (NÉBIH) was the next speaker. He told that consumers are increasingly conscious, they want to eat safe and healthy foods about which information is available, as because of globalisation food ingredients, semi-finished foods and ready-made products arrive to Hungary from every part of the world, travelling thousands of kilometres in just 24-48 hours. “The authorities must act when the rules are broken or frauds occur. In the food supply chain some of the typical examples of this are illegal slaughtering, food adulteration, and relabelling expired products.”

Theory and practice

Vatai Krisztina
üzletfejlesztési igazgató
GS1 Magyarország

Krisztina Vatai, business development director of GS1 Magyarország spoke about the GS1 Guide, which was prepared in cooperation with the Ministry of Agriculture. “With the help of tracking we can build databases, which can increase consumer safety and the brand equity of products. Besides, the fight against food fraud is also one of the most important tasks” – she told. The business development director spoke about the Guide that had been approved on 1 March 2022, and was published after the conference. She introduced the different chapters and informed that the Guide can be downloaded for free from the GS1 Magyarország website.

In recent years, consumer’s demand for the purchased food to be truly safe and healthy and for the possible risks associated with its consumption to be accessible has increased

Zsolt Páger
business development director
Hungast Csoport

Zsolt Páger, business development director of Hungast Group gave a presentation about how to establish the standardised tracking system of GS1 in public sector catering. He gave an insight into how the Hungast Group operates, with special attention to serving customers with special dietary needs. “It also became necessary to modernise the packaging of the food we deliver. With classic food we replaced the old round-shaped food containers with rectangular ones, which can be stored and transported more efficiently. In 2019-2020 we started using the new innovation dietbox for serving special diet meals.” //

The above article is available for reading on pp 196-197 of Trade magazin 2022.08-09.