Prehrambeno-tehnološki fakultet Osijek

The Faculty of Food Technology in Osijek was founded in 1976. The study of food technology started in 1970 at the Agricultural Faculty in Osijek on the initiative of several professors from the Faculty of Food and Bio-technology in Zagreb.
The Faculty of Food Technology in Osijek was founded with an aim to educate highly qualified manpower that could meet the needs of food industry in the Slavonia-Baranja region. This manpower could modernize the existing industry, due to their theoretical and practical knowledge acquired during the studies, and apply scientific ideas and methods from the food engineering domain.

a) food science
b) food technology
c) process engineering.

At the beginning the Faculty was faced with many organizational and technical difficulties because it did not possess its own premises, the necessary equipment or a sufficient number of professors.
The lectures, laboratory exercises, scientific and research work were carried out in rented premises at the Agricultural Faculty, the Secondary school "Ruder Boskovic", the Faculty of Economics, the Faculty of Education and the Electro-technical secondary school.
The above mentioned circumstances led to the construction of the Food Technology Faculty building in 1979. The building was located on the Tenja road as a part of the working organization of the Bio-technical, Scientific, Education Center, which was in its third phase of development.
The Faculty building was constructed in 1986. It comprised the lecture rooms, processing laboratories, a processing hall, laboratories for teaching purposes and other premises. The total area was about 6500 m2 which enabled modern and high-quality education and successful scientific and research work to be carried out.

During the war in Croatia the Faculty building, laboratories, cabinets and a lot of equipment were badly damaged so that the lectures had to take place at various temporary locations in the town, e.g. the Secondary Technical School, the School of Medicine, the Student Center, the Open University, the Center for nursery schools and kindergarten at Vijenac I.Mestrovica, the Faculty of Education, the Faculty of Electrical Engineering.
Since the day of the foundation of the Food Technology Faculty, 500 students have graduated with the status of Food Technology Engineer.
As the Faculty lacked its own teaching staff it relied on young people who had to finish post graduate studies and get doctor,s degrees. After having finished these studies, many of them have stayed at the Faculty and today they have various teaching degrees and run various courses. A minority left the University and they work in different institutions in the country or abroad. Today most of the courses are covered by the Faculty teaching staff and by several other professors who are not Faculty members. Today the Faculty employs two professors, five associate professors, seven assistant professors, two lecturers, two scientific assistants with doctor,s degrees, five scientific assistants with master,s degrees, three assistants without scientific degrees and five professional associates.
So far the Faculty has not organized post-graduate studies but the new curricula will very likely include this discipline.
In spite of the war in our region and destruction of the Faculty building in 1992 and 1993, a certain number of teachers were promoted to a higher teaching status and other teachers are in the process of acquiring it.
In the field of food technology the research projects cover food and processing engineering and food technology, i.e. rheological and thermo-physical properties of food, aroma retention and production, extrusion, methods of food quality control, mycotoxins in food. As regards chemistry, the research work includes analytical and organic chemistry, biochemistry and physical chemistry.
In the previous years the Faculty cooperated with similar institutions on the contracts basis, i.e. with the Faculty of Food and Bio-technology, Zagreb and the Faculty of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Zagreb. The cooperation referred to the realization of scientific projects, writing of Masters, and Doctors, papers.
The aims of this cooperation were and still are: projects realization and promotion of the scientific and teaching staff. The form of cooperation was: joint realization of scientific and research work.
In 1993 many of the Faculty professors and assistants participated in the joint realization of the projects fun by the Faculty of Food and Bio-technology and the Faculty of Chemical Engineering and Technology in Zagreb. Event today some members of the teaching staff are involved in the joint scientific projects financed by the Ministry of Science and Technology.
Co-operation with foreign scientific, research and educational institutions has involved visits of the Faculty staff to foreign countries through scholarships, scientific and research programs. In the previous years some of our researchers took part in the joint scientific projects in the USA. This year another scientific projects has been proposed as a part of the Croatian-American foundation of science.
In March 1994 The Faculty has sent a proposal to the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry as regards several programs for the FAO projects, ec.g. "Support for the private rural economy".
From the very foundation of the Faculty several members of the teaching staff have cooperated with industry as regards technology transfer. They have offered expertise and preliminary desing of projects referring to food production, preservation and manufacturing.
The Faculty staff, apart from being involved in the scientific, research and educational work, could also run specialized courses in the field of food technology, more precisely in the technology of flour production and processing, technology of meat and fish, technology of milk and milk products, technology of processing and preserving fruit and vegetables. It is feasible to organize such specialized courses and to educate manpower in the field of quality control of food products. This also implies training which facilitates work with the latest equipment.
A Students, Association FESA has been recently established at the Faculty. Its program, among other activities, includes cooperation with the food industry in Osijek, Slavonia and Baranja region. This co-operation along with practical traineeship that students will acquire in firms, will result in new working experience and knowledge.