Bachelor of Engineering (BEng) in Food Safety and Quality

Would you like to help ensure that the food we eat is high quality and does not pose a health risk? Do you want to perform quality management in a modern food company, or track down diseases as a public health inspector? Then food safety and quality is the right study programme for you. The programme is run jointly by DTU and the University of Copenhagen.

What will you learn?

On the food safety and quality study programme you will learn how to safeguard and investigate the quality of our food. You will acquire broad interdisciplinary competences in microbiology, chemistry, and toxicology, and familiarity with nutrition and production—all disciplines that are used in state-of-the-art, risk-based management and control of food quality and production.

You will learn about the quality of raw ingredients, nutritional content, and food safety, which focuses on how chemicals and pathogenic bacteria in food affect humans. You will learn to identify the factors that represent a health risk, by analysing the entire production chain from raw ingredients to the final product—or ‘field to table’.

Study programme structure

During semesters 1-3 you will complete mandatory courses at DTU such as chemistry, microbiology, mathematics, toxicology, and food production. You spend semester 4 studying at the University of Copenhagen (Faculty of Science). Semester 5 marks the beginning of 18 months’ industry contact.

You will learn about innovation in collaboration with industry, and complete an internship in semester 6 at an organization such as Novozymes, Novo Nordisk, Danish Crown, or the Danish Veterinary and Food Administration. Your study programme ends with your BEng project in semester 7. At the end of the course you can use choose an area to specialize in via electives.

Career opportunities

Graduates of the food safety and quality study programme can apply for food production and inspection jobs in the public sector or in private food producing companies. You can also use your qualifications in biological and pharmaceutical production or in catering. You could work as an analytical employee in the food industry, in the regional food inspection laboratories or the Danish Veterinary and Food Administration, or as a quality control employee in the pharma industry.