The Faculty of Nursing and Health Sciences (FNHS) at Notre Dame University-Louaize Shouf Campus (NDU-SC) organized on Tuesday, April 24, 2018, at noon, its Food Safety Quality Management (FSQM) Fair 2018 for postgraduate students enrolled in the Food Product Development Course (FQM 644) in the presence of SC Director Fr. Naji Khalil. The entire NDU community (administrators, faculty, staff, and students) was invited.
Under the supervision of FNHS Coordinator Dr. Lara Youssef and under the guidance Dr. Lea Nehme, students were asked to choose one Lebanese mouneh (preserved food) product, in order to fortify it with one or more purposeful ingredients, which they considered would add nutritional and/or biological value. The aim of this project was to make mouneh products trendy again while maintaining the traditional Lebanese essence and giving the Lebanese mouneh an edge to compete with other international preserved food products, such as Italian olive oil.
Students worked in groups of two to three on a research project relevant to the course contents and prepared posters to be displayed during the Fair. Each group had to pick a different product, choose a functional ingredient, develop the product, create an innovative package, and generate an advertisement to grab consumer attention.
Group 1: Hala al-Mourawed and Souad al -yash:
This group chose to fortify apple jam by adding extra pectin, beetroots, cinnamon, and cloves. After adding the functional ingredients they molded their new product into tiny candy morsels, in order to create an innovative and healthy sweet product similar to the traditional Lebanese rahha (Turkish delights) shape.
Group 2: Mira bou Dargham, Nadia Awad, and Hanaa Bahri:
This group chose to work on the Lebanese pomegranate mouneh. They added barley malt syrup to the product, as a rich source of vitamin B.
Group 3: Dima Bou Ajram, Salwa Abdelkhalek, and Tahani Assaf:
This group chose to work on Lebanese olive oil by fortifying it with more Vitamin E.
The three food products were offered for tasting. Presentations and products were ranked based on the overall look, uniqueness, taste, and social vote.