Rába-Danube-Váh EGTC

Within the framework of the regional action plan for employment called ‘Food industry’, the Rába-Danube-Váh EGTC organised 4 online thematic workshops in the topics of ‘wheat’, ‘wine’, ‘meat’ and ‘vegetable – fruit’. The lead beneficiary of the project is the Slovak company called K.K.V. – Union s.r.o. (Lehnice), and the additional beneficiaries are the Kősziklás Borászat Kft. (Dunaszentmiklós, Hungary), the Vörös Tészta Manufaktúra (Tarján, Hungary), the Mäsovinky s.r.o. (Jablonica, Slovakia) and the AEH spol. s.r.o. (Pezinok, Slovakia).

In the thematic workshop, with 150 participants, the set objectives and achieved goals of the projects within the action plan were demonstrated. The series of lectures compiled around the daily topic of the thematic workshops followed the principle of demonstrating the areas of activity of the 5 SMEs’ beneficiaries participating in the project.

The enterprises participating in the project have shown that they are establishing the conditions of developing a new, healthy and regional product range by introducing innovative technologies and processing raw materials produced locally, and the long-term cooperation between the actors of the food industry.

Among other things, the experiments on einkorn and winter wheat in 2020 and the planning and optimisation of the technology for extracting carbohydrate concentrate out of grape marc were discussed at the workshops, as well as the effects the antioxidant content of plant products have on healthy eating, the effect of different types of yeasts on the aroma of wines and labelling the nutritional value of foodstuffs.

Most of the lectures covered the guidelines of proper nutrition and gave tips on how to eat healthier and how to prepare healthy meals. The topics were, for example, Okara as a significant source of fibre and nutrition in bakery products, the importance of fats in foodstuffs, the importance of maintaining the correct balance of plant protein and animal protein in terms of nutrition, and the polyols as possible tools to reduce sugar intake.

The entrepreneurs participating in the workshops were glad to find forms of cooperation and exchange experiences, thanks to organisations like the European Innovation Cluster Chains, the CED Central European Economic Development Network or the Slow Food movement present in 150 countries.