Faculty of Commerce, Hospitality and Tourism

FCHT

KVIK

FCHT

ETDTFA

Education and Training Development for the Treatment of Food Allergies

ERASMUS+ KA220-HED - Cooperation Partnerships

2022-2-HU01-KA220-HED-000094859

Introduction

About the project

A healthy lifestyle is more and more important since civilizational diseases are spreading continuously. There are a lot of innovative foods and ingredients on the market, but people with a food allergy or intolerance can face a complex problem because they have to avoid these ingredients and need to choose another healthy type of food that can substitute the “normal” nutrient. 3% of the Hungarian population suffer from food allergy or intolerance, and 1% have serious symptoms. This disease encumbers the daily routine of the patient. It is difficult to organize a free time program in a restaurant or pub, participate in a festival or a business trip, eat in the workplace, etc. The HoReCa sector is not equally well performed to satisfy the food allergy needs and the employees of the sector possess very different knowledge about this special field of nutrition. The application of the relevant European Union legislation (Regulation No 1169/2011 of the European Parliament and the Council on the provision of food information to consumers) and the rules of safe food production also often encounter difficulties. Unfortunately, despite the tendency of this problem, the service providers are unsure when facing this problem, and they can’t serve the guests or only with mistakes, which can cause health damage to the guests.

The participating organizations face the problem in their practices and many colleges and students are affected in some kinds of these diseases. They started to study the economic relations of this field and there are some single initiatives to develop their course materials with these important directions, but we need complex, practice-based knowledge to be able to synthesize and apply it in the education system. It is essential to develop commerce, hospitality, and tourism education to improve the knowledge regarding food allergies and intolerances.

Thus, the organizations can prepare their students for the new challenges and they can offer training programs for other stakeholders, like employees and leaders of restaurants, hotels, or other professionals. With this project, it becomes possible to develop an advisory team and service package in the universities that can help the player of the HoReCa sector to create a secure supply system in the long term.

Our most important task is to facilitate acceptance of existing food allergies and intolerances and to highlight the importance of the handling methods with the help of the education system and supporting network. It is essential in the inclusion of affected students and other consumers because there are a lot of people who understate the relevance of this illness or can’t accept the importance of the handling methods (e.g. avoiding ingredients completely). This is why we need to develop an attitude formatting solution with the help of active participation of civil organizations.

Priorities

HE: Building inclusive higher education systems

ADU: Improving the availability of high quality learning opportunities for adults

ADU: Creating upskilling pathways, improving accessibility and increasing take-up of adult education

Aims

One of our long-term objectives is the construction and continuous development of an expert network with the participation of universities, civil organizations, and authorities. With the cooperation of these organizations and the synthetization of their knowledge, we can effectively influence the participants of the HoReCa sector, and this can cause the food allergy-affected consumers a better service with considerable security. With the developed course materials, we offer a high-quality learning program for our students and external adult applicants (employees of the HoReCa sector) based on novel digital learning methods.