Producing better food

The English-language master's program "Food Quality and Safety" started teaching in Kulmbach in the winter semester 2020/21. Thematically, this degree program focuses on ensuring and increasing food quality and safety by combining the natural science perspective with food law and quality management. This degree program is thus ideally suited to address the topics that are already being worked on in Kulmbach in a wide variety of ways by industrial companies, a federal institute, state authorities and the research centers of the University of Bayreuth that are present on site.

Food is fundamentally different from other goods: It consists of (parts of) organisms that were alive or still are. In addition to the higher complexity of its composition and the variation in its starting materials, this results in a greater risk of variability during production, transport, and storage. How do we supply as many people as possible in the most sustainable ways with high-quality, healthy food? You will deal with this and similar questions in the master’s programme "Food Quality and Safety".

The research area of food quality and safety is changing rapidly. The world's population is growing and globalisation is changing lifestyles and diets. Innovations in biochemical analytics, modern sensor technology, intelligent data processing, and breeding methods are currently opening up exciting new opportunities. At the same time, the demand for sustainability in the production and distribution of food is growing, and problems in complex production and supply chains, resulting for example in "food scandals", reveal high levels of sensitivity and uncertainty among consumers.

Profile of the master's programme

The core competencies taught in the programme will enable our graduating Master students to understand and solve problems in the field of food quality and safety from an integrative, cross-disciplinary perspective. To this end, the course is interdisciplinary in design, combining a life science focus (e.g. biology of crops and farm animals, food microbiology, human nutrition, analytical methods, food biochemistry) with an approximately equal share of legal and economic studies. The modules of the master’s curriculum comprise Biology and Biochemistry of Food, Human Biology, Food Chemistry, Data Science/Bioinformatics/Statistics, Food Law, Food Trade Law, Safety and Risk Management Law, Quality Management, Food Supply Chain Management, and Science Communication.

Bayreuth spirit on the Campus in Kulmbach

The University’s Faculty of Life Sciences is located in Kulmbach. It is home not only to several internationally operating food companies, but also to the Max Rubner Institute, the Bavarian Control Authority for Food Safety and Veterinary Medicine, the State Technical College for Food Technology, the Competence Centre for Nutrition, and the Kulmbach Clinical Centre. All these bodies are involved in various research projects and in the Faculty's teaching activities.