Abstract:

In recent years there has been a growing interest by consumers about food beyond the need to feed themselves. Different factors - such as the appearance of foodies, the increase of Instagram food accounts, the food market sustainability, or the need to find new and different healthier products- have affected the food industry, forcing it to be in constant development and in search of innovative products, all this without forgetting food safety and quality. This is a new scenario for veterinarians, who have traditionally been more focused on official control in this industry rather than on being aware of the great change that industries are making to adapt themselves to consumer demand. The veterinary business landscape is changing, so developing creativity and entrepreneurial skills in the Veterinary classroom is a challenge in higher education.

The aim of this paper is to describe a classroom activity, consisting of the students presenting innovative food products at a food fair held at a Faculty. In doing so, the students must not only develop their creativity and business skills, but also comply with the EU provisions regarding self-control in the food industry. They must defend and present their ideas, products and self-control system in a professional environment.

The main goal of this activity is to develop cross-curricular learning with competences such as teamwork, professional practice, application of food components and characteristics, and communication and entrepreneurial skills. Students must work as a team and prepare a food product that must be suitable for consumption and that will be tested and evaluated by the rest of their classmates.

This project allows students to develop transversal learning with skills such as collaborative work, professional practice, the application of the components and characteristics of food, and communication and business skills. It enables the student to integrate knowledge of the three subjects involved.

The activity has four steps:
1) description of the product;
2) development of the product;
3) development of two hygiene and traceability plans and risk assessment of one stage of the flow chart, and
4) finally, the students must prepare the poster and the stand for the presentation at the fair. During the fair students can taste, evaluate and vote their favourite product.

Evaluation is made taken in to account the following competences:
1. Know how to present in a scientific way the basic operations that are carried out in the preparation of food
2. Employ the main food preservation techniques.
3. Apply the main methods of food processing.
4. Identify the legislation that affects the food sector and choose the one that concerns a specific product.

To determine if the implementation of the project has influenced the specific competencies and soft skills of the students, the evaluation is carried out by comparing the final grade of the students of the course and its difference with the marks obtained by the control group a year before through a rubric that collects the competencies. A personal questionnaire focused on soft skills was carried out before and after the completion of the work. In this sense, the results show that the students have improved their specific competences but have also improved competences related to soft skills such as creativity, communication, the ability to solve problems, professionalism, teamwork and importance of a good attitude towards work.

Keywords:

innovation, motivation, learning improving, food science, veterinary education, Soft Skills, creativity, business skills, innovative products.