Tracks leading into the future

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

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.