<< Background >>The Food & Drink industry is the EU largest manufacturing sector in terms of turnover, value added and employment. Despite of market turmoils also due to Covid-19, it remains stable and dominates the EU external trade. Higher Education and training activities in the food sectors are growing in the EU largely dominated by conventional study programmes and teaching methodologies that in general do not allow the achievement of competences and skills needed by the current and future job market.<< Objectives >>The ASKFOOD main aim was to create a permanent knowledge sharing alliance between businesses, business associated organisations and Universities in the food and food-related sectors. Establishing such an alliance, the ASKFOOD consortium: (1) created the necessary frame for collaboration, (2) converted innovative concepts into new tools to be provided within this frame(3)tested and applied innovative training methodologies(4)ensured sustainability by establishing a permanent alliance<< Implementation >>The project has:-implemented a series of virtual tools to early discovery and anticipate trends and related emerging skills-implemented an interactive platform and dynamic networking for multisector knowledge sharing and co-creation-improve training models, by launching disruptive, learner-led and cross-industry training schemes, i.e. Reverse incubator -set up common tools and organizational frame that will guarantee the sustainability of the network: the permanent Observatory.<< Results >>•Cross-industry knowledge platforms (Knowledge and Training Hub and Clusters) •Open Innovation framework to modernize education/training (ASKFOOD DBTE)•Interactive repository of emerging skills and professional profiles in the food sector in a forward-looking perspective (Interactive Atlas) so to forecast future skill needs (Forecast Aggregator) •Acceleration and growth hacking solutions (Reversed Incubator, ASKFOOD Garage Labs)•Permanent ASKFOOD Observatory

In the food industry there are a high number of products susceptible to contamination. That is why the surfaces in contact with food products and the environment where these products are processed should be hygienically correct. This objective is only achieved through regular and systematic cleaning and disinfection (C&D). In the food&drink (F&D) sector these activities are carried out by the production workers or industrial cleaning companies who perform the c&d processes.Cleaning workers are affected by regulations and standards related with hygiene, environmental protection and health and safety in relation to the use of C&D products (many of them are biocides). Thus, adaptability of workers is needed to deal with continuous changes and developments emerging in the sector. Proper training of workers is essential to reduce the high number of workplace accidents and occupational illnesses as well as food hazards causing food-borne diseases. The project developed training materials that will improve training on C&D procedures, occupational hazards and hygiene in the food&drink sector, and therefore, will ensure the workers’ safety and the consumers’ health.The objectives of the project are: 1-To provide training on C&D procedures in the F&D industry. 2-To use both food hygiene and prevention of occupational risks training as a strategy to increase workers adaptability to changes and developments emerging in the sector, thereby improving their employability and competitiveness. 3-To encourage the spreading and implementation the European policy about food safety, contributing therefore to protect consumers' health and to protect workers' from occupational risks. 4-To guarantee the product quality and safety by continuous evaluation.The partnership was composed for several organisations with great experience in the vocational training for the F&D and chemical sector from Iceland, Italy, Spain, Lithuania and Romania.The results of the project was a comprehensive new training material on C&D procedures, hygiene, food safety, occupational risk and waste management. The training material is available on an e-platform with open access for all interested in taking the course. The main impact of the project results is to support Vocational and Educational Trainers (VET) by providing them with teaching resources about C&D procedures, food hygiene and occupational risks prevention to train workers performing C&D activities in the F&D sector; More favorable environment to encourage the use of ICT on education; Improvement of the training courses given by the VET system.

Food business is the first sector in terms of employment in Europe, 90% of food companies being SMEs (majority of them being micro enterprises). Though innovation is the main leverage to improve competitiveness, there is neither high enough innovation and entrepreneurship spirit nor innovation transfer from High Education Institutes (HEI) to business. The partners of this consortium, involved for years in initiatives aiming at fostering innovation and interactions between students and industry on the basis of project-based learning approach, identified limits of the current training approaches. The project performance will be notably assessed against the generation of new products or processes and the creation of value and long term collaborations. For this purpose, it will create a European FoodBusiness Transfer Laboratory that will centralize new educational content and tools to foster stimulate entrepreneurship entrepreneurial skills and will allow constructive interactions between HEIs and foodbusiness stakeholders. Supported by a shared web-platform allowing multidisciplinary knowledge exchanges between the partners, this project will also produce best practices for entrepreneurship development, new learning and teaching approaches in closer contact with industry, etc. Taken together, FOODLAB project’s results will homogenize educational approaches; improve interactions between academia and industry; develop entrepreneurship spirit; foster innovation and competences transfer; promote integration of young graduated in SMEs. Ultimately this project will be the basis of competitiveness improvement in food SMEs and bigger companies. It will also help to maintain and increase employment in food sector and possibly in other sectors, as the present project is designed to allow transfer of methodology and best practices in training to other sectors.

APPETITE Project was carried out for 2 years between December 2017 and November 2019. The APPETITE Project’s objective was developing training and practical education on enduring business models among an innovative training course addressing on experienced agri-food entrepreneurs and youth seeking for new work opportunities.APPETITE project focused development of a training aimed at awareness rising of experienced agri-food entrepreneurs about their need for adaptation and innovation to make a transition toward a sustainable business model; development of new competences for youth and unemployed to apply innovation and sustainable schemes to the agri-food sector.For this reason, project partners developed the learning journey in the project. The classification of the training contents in the 3 parts of the training course (Discovery, Incubation, Acceleration) and 1 part for optional (Transversal) developed structure of the course and allocation of the topics through ideas about how business models were created based in the Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability. According to partner’s decision, the structure of the training course created the same for entrepreneurs and youths, but the contents of the course were different. Within this scope, under O1-A1 and O2-A1 (Researching course modules) were distributed training subjects to all partners by the leaders. Under O1-A2 and O2-A2 (Creation of a structured learning journey) learning journey was created. Under O3, the intergenerational contents created the expected dialogue between the two-target group and their collaboration toward sector innovation.The subjects are training activities; Introduction to Sustainability and CSR; Sustainable Development; Agri-food Value Chain 1 (value chain management); Agri-food Value Chain 2 (stakeholder management); Creativity and Innovation Skills; Stakeholder Management (Engagement); Stakeholder Maps and Prioritization Matrix; Sustainability Context Matrix; Business Modelling; Market Analysis (SWOT); Materiality Matrix; Sustainability Report; Action Plan; Change Management. Also, some modules are optional, the trainees have the possibility to improve their skills regarding: Circular economy; Industry 4.0; Globalization; Servitization; Open innovation; Social innovation; Social media and reputation; Cooperation and Team-working skills. Project partner, TATICS, created a project web site and training platform. All the training materials were uploaded the platform on each partners’ own language except Danish (www.appetiteproject.eu). The course contents aimed to test via two technical meetings in the application form; one of them was for the entrepreneurs under O1-A4 activity and the other was for youths under O2-A4 in each partner country. These two meetings were organised together as structure of the learning journey. So, it was decided that this structure would be well-organised and more useful for both entrepreneurs and youths. In the technical meetings, modules of the APPETITE course and functionalities of the platform and the decision that took the consortium to elaborate the course that way were explained during the events. Totally, 26 students, 20 entrepreneurs and 9 stakeholders were attended the technical meetings. Feedbacks were collected from the participants (Annex 1 – Technical Meetings Report).After the completion of all training materials, project partners organised a short-term blended activity (C1) for 5 days in Rome. The main objective of this activity was to test the intergenerational methodology developed APPETITE training and made pilot practice.Students, entrepreneurs and partner representatives, totally 20 participants, were attended the training activity. After the activity, all the participants filled the “Trainee’s competences questionnaire” and “Trainee’s satisfaction questionnaire” for evaluate and give feedbacks according to Validation Methodology. Also, project partners fill the “Trainer’s assessment” forms (Annex 2 – Minutes of C1 activity, Annex 3 - Validation Reports).Then, each country organised Multiplier Events (E) which targets a local territorial scale and FEDACOVA organised the final conference in Valencia, to present the conclusions of the project and to collect the feedbacks. Totally, 104 students, 57 entrepreneurs and 45 stakeholders attended these events; with extra 8 project partners participation to final conference (Annex 4 – Report of Local Multiplier Workshops). For the project sustainability and long-term impact, Exploitation Plan and Collaboration Agreement was prepared by SETBİR. After the project completion, the new competences and supporting Learning Management System will be completely developed, and maintenance activities will be sustained after the project end so that the delivered outputs can generate the expected positive impacts and spin-offs on the target groups (Annex 5 – Exploitation Plan and Collaboration Agreement).