A peak into Food Safety and Quality management and certification

My name is Inga Ósk and I come from Iceland. Before I came to Cranfield I had graduated from University of Akureyri with BSc in biotechnology. After I graduated I got a job in a food laboratory, where microbial and chemical analysis were done along with audits and everything related to food safety. I became interested in the food chain and decided to apply for an MSc in Food Chain Systems at Cranfield University where I am currently finishing my third module.

That module was double module, with two weeks of lectures and two weeks of assignments. The lecture weeks were informative and highly technical. There were long days, lectures in the morning and lab work in the afternoon, sometimes until 7.

Aspergillus flavus after growing for 4 days.

This wasn’t all bad as it increased my knowledge and understanding of how research can be time consuming but interesting and meaningful at the same time, the time just flies by. We got to know various types of research, for example fungal measurements, mycotoxin extraction, effect of ultraviolet light on spinach, contamination in minced beef and cross-contamination through hand shake.

Lekisha preparing herself for fungal measurement.

Despite these long days I highly enjoyed this module because it was well taught, a good experience and not just lectures all day. The knowledge that I gained here is important and something that undoubtedly, I will use sometime in the future and hopefully never forget. This module contained a lot of Kahoot tests, which is an online quiz where the questions appear on screen and you are in competition with your classmates to see who is quickest to answer right. It’s very stimulating and a good way to check the understanding of the curriculum. Also, there were a lot of small case studies and games that we played which made discussions and we learned from each other experiences.

The girls preparing samples.

The most fun and challenging module until now on my Cranfield journey!