About Us

History

The legal basis for the establishment of the Digital Food Institute was laid down by the Government Decision No 1470/2019. (VIII. 1.) on the promotion and coordination of the digitalization of the Hungarian agriculture, Hungary’s Digital Agriculture Strategy. The main objective of the Institute is to provide analysis, education, research, development and innovation services in the area of food chain safety for all the stakeholders. The Institute also aims for providing practical support to agri-food business players, develop their digitisation opportunities and provide complex veterinary training based on food chain-based digital technologies.

The unit was established on April 1, 2020 at the University of Veterinary Medicine in Budapest, which is one of the most important places for the training of food safety professionals in Hungary. As the national custodian of veterinary public health, the University has a key role in updating and continuously improving food safety trainings.

From 21 June 2023, DFI works under the Institute of Food Chain Science and continues to operate under the name of Department of Digital Food Science (keeping the abbreviation DFI).

Mission

Main drivers affecting the food chain, like global trade, demographic growth, climate change, socio-economic changes, energy-, water- and food security, all point towards increasing complexity.

The background to this is an intricate system of many elements of different dimensions (natural, social, political, economic), where the number of interrelationships between elements is increasing and the system is becoming more sensitive to changes and more unpredictable in its response, and their accumulation can lead to unpredictable properties and phenomena from the observation of individuals.

Such a system affecting food safety and food security could be the flow of food, the spread of agents through and along the movement of animals or humans, or, for example, the regulatory network of bacteria that enables them to survive food processing.

The food professionals of the future – in academia, industry and public administration alike – need to be better prepared for complex systems, which inevitably means a need for higher level of information management and computational science knowledge.

The key to this is a multidisciplinary education and research, which requires proactive steps towards closer collaboration of all scientific fields involved.

The Department aims to integrate food chain safety data analysis and research along the food chain, to bring networking in this field to a new level, and to become an internationally recognised node of expertise and research in the field of food chain safety data analysis.

DFI carries out food chain-based, integrated research for the agri-food chain actors in areas requiring scientific complex problem solving and data analysis. The Institute uses innovative approaches, the latest technological solutions and modern data science methods and makes them available to a wide range of stakeholders.

The Department works in close collaboration with Hungarian and foreign universities, research institutions, authorities and with international organisations active in this field.

VETERINARIANS WILL NOT BE REPLACED BY
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE . . .
. . . THEY WILL BE REPLACED BY VETERINARIANS
USING ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE.

Our Colleagues

Meet our Colleagues.

Miklós Süth PhD

Director of the Institute

Miklós Süth is a veterinarian with a food hygiene specialisation. From 2003 to 2010, he worked in the public administration in managerial roles, including as the Chief Veterinary Officer of Hungary. From 2010 to 2018, he was the Strategic Director of Fornetti Franchise. Since 2018, he has been the Chief Adviser to the Rector of the University of Veterinary Medicine. Since April 2020 he also holds the position of director of DFI, since 2022 he is the head of the Department of Food Hygiene, and since 2023 the director of the Institute of Food Chain Science.

Ákos Bernard Jóźwiak PhD

Head of department

Ákos Bernard Jóźwiak is a veterinarian, holding a doctoral degree in veterinary sciences. He worked for the National Food Chain Safety Office (NÉBIH) and its predecessors for 15 years in various positions. In the recent years he worked in the area of strategic planning, food safety risk assessment and data analysis. Since the establishment of DFI he acts as research director, since 2023 as head of department.

Zsuzsa Farkas PhD

Deputy head of department

Zsuzsa Farkas is a biologist, nutritionist, with a PhD in food sciences. She worked for the National Food Chain Safety Office of Hungary (NÉBIH) for 7 years. Her main tasks in the Department are the coordination of emerging risk identification and the supporting data analysis research and development, in addition to the epidemiological modelling of infectious diseases.

Szilveszter Csorba

Food chain data analyst

Szilveszter Csorba is a qualified environmental engineer specialising in agri-environmental protection. He worked for 11 years at NÉBIH and its predecessor. First, he worked in the field of soil protection, then turned toward data analysis. His main tasks at the Department include the development and implementation of complex data analysis methodologies.

Tekla Engelhardt PhD

research fellow

Tekla Engelhardt is a food engineer with a PhD in food sciences. Her scientific research work began in 2011 in the field of food safety after graduating as a food engineer. Her main responsibilities at the Department are the coordination of educational activities, e.g. the development and launch of postgraduate courses, and management of laboratory work.

Máté Farkas DVM

Food chain data analyst

Máté Farkas is a veterinarian, graduated from the University of Veterinary Medicine in 2023. He wrote his thesis on the influence of environmental factors on abnormal behaviour of male turkeys. His areas of interest include poultry health, animal hygiene, animal welfare, food hygiene and its digitalisation. He is working as a research analyst at the Department, and starts his PhD studies at the fall of 2023.

Erika Országh

Food chain data analyst

Erika Országh holds a degree in sociology and in health policy (with specialization in health economics). She worked for the National Food Chain Safety Office (NÉBIH) for almost 6 years. Her main tasks at the Department are to carry out analyses using health technology assessment methodologies, e.g. cost-benefit analysis, risk-benefit analysis and she also participates in vrious data analysis tasks.

Orsolya Strang PhD

Food chain data analyst

Orsolya Strang is a biologist and has a PhD degree in biological sciences. She worked for 6 years in the University of Szeged as a researcher. Her research topics included the production of biogas from lignocellulose containing substrates as well as the investigation of interactions between probiotics and oral pathogenic bacteria. Her tasks at the Department include emerging risk identification, risk assesment and data analysis.

Krisztián Vribék

Food chain data analyst

Krisztián Vribék graduated as an engineering manager and is currently a master's student in cognitive neuroscience. He has previously worked as a manager and commercial director. His current tasks at the department involve data and network analysis.

Andrea Zentai PhD

Food chain data analyst

Zentai Andrea biomérnök, az élelmiszertudományok doktora. 13 éven át dolgozott a NÉBIH-nél és jogelődjénél kockázatbecslési munkatárs, élelmiszerbiztonsági koordinátor és elemző munkakörökben. Részt vett a Codex Alimentarius hazai működtetésében és a Codex analitikai szakbizottságának szakmai szervezésében, továbbá adatelemzéssel és kockázatbecsléssel foglalkozott. A tanszéken az újonnan felmerülő kockázatok azonosításában, a kockázatbecslésben és az oktatással kapcsolatos feladatokban vesz részt-

Tibor Kocsner DVM

Biosafety coordinator

Tibor Kocsner is a veterinarian, with a state administration and disease control specialisation. Worked as a privet veterinarian, as a pathologist at the Laboratory of biotoxicology of the Plant Health and Soil Protection Service. For 25 years he worked for the State Veterinary Service of Hungary at local, regional and ministry level in different positions. He takes part as a lecturer in the education of the Food Hygiene course, and also has responsibilities in the biosafety matters of the University of Veterinary Medicine Budapest.

András Bittsánszky PhD

Assistant professor

András Bittsánszky is an agronomist, has a PhD in Plant Production and Horticulture. His current interests are food microbiology and food hygiene. His research focuses on agricultural production and food processing, with the primary goal of bringing safe and high quality food to our tables. He is a part-time assistant professor at the Department.

András József Tóth PhD

Assistant professor

András József Tóth is a qualified economist, with PhD in management and business administration sciences. His research interests are food safety management, food security and the applicability of rapid microbiological methods in food hygiene surveillance systems. Since 2011 he has been involved in several national and international research projects at the InDeRe Institute for Food System Research and Innovation Ltd. From April 2021, he is a part-time assistant professor at the Department.

Contact Us

Department of Digital Food Science

Institute of Food Chain Science

University of Veterinary Medicine Budapest

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