Equipped with all the necessary skills

This entitles them to the much sought-after diploma qualifying them as Feed Production Engineer.

 

The 29th graduate course organized by the Swiss Institute of Feed Technology was held in English.

 

This was reflected by the international makeup of its attendees: In addition to students from South Africa, Spain, Finland, the United Kingdom, Ecuador, the Netherlands, and Switzerland, participants also for the first time ever in the history of this specialist course came from Namibia and Trinidad/Tobago.

 

During the seven-month preparatory correspondence course and the subsequent seven-week intensive training course in Uzwil, Switzerland, the students dealt with 21 subjects and had to pass no fewer than 12 intermediate tests.

 

Then, on July 1, came the moment when the final weeks and months reached their climax: the graduation ceremony, which this year was celebrated against the picturesque backdrop of the hamlet of Tufertschwil near Uzwil.

 

Training and continuing education have clearly become more important especially over the past years.

 

As a result of increased globalization, changes in the marketplace occur more frequently and with greater speed, which also boosts demand for new technologies. In addition, sanitation requirements in terms of “safe feed safe food” are high and even comparable to those encountered in the food processing industry.

 

Ernst Nef, Director of the SFT, personally handed each successful student his diploma, never failing to add some fitting anecdote to his congratulations.

 

As demanded by tradition, a commemoration plate was additionally handed to the student who achieved the best result in the course.

 

For the first time in the history of the SFT, something incredible happened: Two students had not only achieved the identical rounded score, but even exactly the same score before rounding!

 

Thus Luis Hernandez, President of the SFT and Head of the Feed & Biomass Business Unit at Buhler, for the first time ever had the honour of handing two commemoration plates to the two best in class.

 

 

Pictured: Ernst Nef, Director of the SFT (right), and Luis Hernandez, President of the SFT and Head of the Feed & Biomass Business Unit of Buhler (second from the left), congratulate the two best students of the 29th specialist course – William Spencer Du Plessis, South Africa (left), and Guy Humbert, Switzerland, who both achieved exactly the same final score!

 

The SFT strives to impart primarily practice oriented specialist knowledge on feed production to professionals’ from the feed manufacturing and related industries.

 

Students who successfully complete the specialist course are enabled to understand, to apply and to operate state-of-the-art technologies and processes in a feed production plant.

 

The Institute recently surveyed the international feed manufacturing industry to find out what it expects of the SFT in terms of contents, duration, and training cost.

 

The result is encouraging, for it clearly shows that the SFT is the preferred academy for future feed milling experts.

 

The international Buhler Technology Group is the partner of the SFT and has supported it since it was set up in 1979.