“During my bachelor’s in Nutrition and Food Science at the University of Porto, I did an internship providing healthy food to people. I noticed that I was missing certain business skills and wanted to develop myself through a master’s programme, preferably abroad.

I looked at master’s programmes all over Europe that combined food innovation, entrepreneurship and healthy food and decided on this master’s programme because it had all the elements I was looking for. The programme in Health Food Innovation Management is very business-oriented. It offers lots of visits to companies, has guest lecturers and offers very good career opportunities after your master’s. Also, the ranking of Maastricht University is very good, so my choice to come here was an easy one in the end. Besides, life in the Netherlands is very affordable and I like the friendly atmosphere and open culture. Everyone speaks English and it’s easy to get to know people and become involved.

In Venlo, where I’m based for this programme, we have a very active study association with lots of activities. For my second-year internship, I would love to join a start-up in food innovation or, if that’s not possible, an innovation department in a big company that creates healthy and sustainable products. I’m now looking at trends in the food industry, how to feed the world population in a sustainable way and the relation between food and disease. I’m convinced that there’s a relationship between food and disease and I’m looking forward to learning more about that from a scientific point of view and to spreading the message.

On a personal level, my greatest challenge will be the rain and the cold: how to survive the winter!”

 

 Want to know more about the Health Food Innovation Management programme? Get our full infopack