Soft Skills for the Food Industry

The course is designed to provide students with transversal "problem-solving" skills in the food industry and to offer tools for a rational approach to the product understanding and its management within the food supply chain.
The specific objectives of the course are to provide and reinforce soft skills such as communication, collaboration within teams, and time management, to effectively address and solve problems that may arise in a professional or business setting. Students will learn to identify ethical and sustainable solutions to challenges related to production, composition, stability, and product quality.
Lectures will help students acquire knowledge and skills in drafting brief reports and CVs, creating technical-scientific presentations, using scientific databases, and employing computer communication systems to collect, rationalize, and share information effectively.
Seminars conducted by food industry experts, focusing on specific case studies, will enrich and make tangible students' awareness of the professional role of graduates in Sustainable Food Science and Technology.
Students will be actively involved in group projects that apply the knowledge learned and in the preparation of written reports and presentations that showcase their learning outcomes. These group activities will help develop communication and coordination skills within the team members and allow students to apply and consolidate the knowledge gained during the lectures, along with the technical skills acquired in other courses.

At the end of the course, students will have acquired knowledge and understanding of the main cross-disciplinary skills necessary to provide concrete solutions to technical issues in the food industry. They will be able to:
· Describe problem-solving techniques and effective communication strategies.
· Apply relational, decision-making, communication, and time management skills, using the knowledge gained to approach technical problems rationally, on an objective basis, and in coordination with colleagues, focusing on solutions that meet efficiency, sustainability, and professional ethics criteria.
· Extract specific information (technical-scientific, regulatory, etc.) from major databases in the field of food technology, organizing it coherently for the intended purposes.
· Produce concise reports or presentations that clearly explain the problems addressed, using appropriate technical language and modern digital tools.