Knowledge and dynamism for the food industry of the future

Balázs Pászti, an advisor to MÉTE (Hungarian Association of Food Science and Technology) speaks about the 18th Students’ Academic Conference and their plans for the future. – Could you please summarise the activities and goals of MÉTE? – MÉTE was founded in 1949. Our goal is still the same: to organise and coordinate the different sectors of food processing, facilitating the dialogue of different experts, for instance by organising conferences. – Who are MÉTE’s members? – Back in the days the association used to have 16,000 members, now we have 2,000. Presently you can find universities with food technology faculties among our members.
Our president is Gábor Szabó, the rector of the University of Szeged. Other important fields are research – not only at universities but also at research institutes – and lobbying. – On 6 May you organised 18th Students’ Academic Conference. Why do you think it was important? – We need the dynamism and the new type of knowledge of young experts. Every prize winners automatically became MÉTE members for a year, free of charge. At the conference 96 essays were presented in 9 categories by 100 students from 5 universities.