Ita White is a trainer consultant in the Food Industry Development Department,Teagasc.
Where do you work?
I work in the Food Industry Development Department and we're based within the Research Programme in Teagasc. A key part of our job is to transfer technology and information to industry.
What is a typical day at work for you?
My work varies a lot from giving certified or specialist training to organising events and dealing with enquiries from businesses. These include questions about food labelling, quality and safety standards, and other technical queries. For example, if I were doing a labelling review for a business, they would send in their product information. I'd review that against the legal requirements and give them a report.
What do you do on a training day?
I'm very much hands on and practical. For example, for our food safety training on HACCP, we want businesses to have an up-to-date plan in place at the end of the programme to make it as applied as possible for them.
What agencies do you work with?
We're very involved with Enterprise Ireland and Bord Bia on the FoodWorks programme. This aims to develop a new wave of food entrepreneurs in the Republic of Ireland and we provide the technology arm to that.
I’m also working with Dr James McIntosh from safefood on food authenticity. We've been working for some months on developing the programme and organising guest speakers for an industry event that took place in June. Hopefully, the event will have improved the knowledge base in the food sector so businesses can protect themselves from food fraud.
Does your work involve travel?
There's a reasonable amount of travel across the island of Ireland and some abroad. I'm involved in a European project, Better Training for Safer Food. As part of this, I travel to venues in Europe and deliver training on auditing to groups of officials from across the European Union.
What do you like about your job?
The one thing I love about the job is the variety as no two days are the same. The international angle is lovely, especially because of the different people I get to meet. There's also always something new happening from a technology point of view in Teagasc.
How did you get into this area?
I have more than 25 years’ experience working in food-related areas. A long time ago, I studied industrial microbiology in University College Dublin. Before Teagasc, I worked in Bord Iascaigh Mhara (BIM), the Department of Health in the UK, the manufacturing sector, and the European Commission’s Food and Veterinary office.
Comments