The project FitNESS - Food Packaging open courseware for higher education and staff of companies began in January 2018 and it will develop teaching materials to teach packaging topics based on e-learning during three years. This project includes some of the most relevant institutions in the area of ​​packaging in Europe, such as the Technical University of Munich, the Faculty of Food Technology and Biotechnology at the University of Zagreb, Agrosup Dijon and the French institute Agroparistech.

ESB was pioneer in the teaching of packaging in Portugal and has increased its role in teaching packaging at European level by receiving Erasmus students and other European Master's degrees in packaging topics. Fátima Poças, director of CINATE, is the coordinator of the project in ESB.

The financing, for a total of € 36,000, will enable the objectives below to be worked out.

1. European wide interactive platform dedicated to the thematic food / packaging.
2. Interactive online courses on generic know-how on food packaging materials and specialized know-how on the rules for materials in contact with food, their transfer properties, migration modeling, eco design, etc.
3. Case studies with quizzes about packaging food safety, environmental impact packaging, packaging suitability, and shelf life of packaged food.
4. Guidelines providing information concerning the suitability of packaging materials for foodstuffs, packaging eco conception, packaging and perceived product evaluation.
5. Webinars addressing packaging news matters, results of recent packaging R & D projects.
6. Targeted training sessions for trainers specialized in packaging.

All deliverables will be hosted by the Iseki (Integrating Food Science and Engineering Knowledge Into the Food Chain) platform for future use.