Abstract
As early as 1887 the German Agriculture Society (Deutsche Landwirtschafts-Gesellschaft DLG) carried out the first
examination of food with a competition. Since the DLG was refounded in 1954 it has continued to pursue its goal to
improve the quality standard of German food. The stated objective of the voluntary quality competitions for meat
products, ready-to-serve meals, frozen food and delicacies, to support manufacturing and sales of highquality products,
is realized by a comparative sensory analysis. Up to now, participants of the DLG Quality Competitions receive
standardized expert?s reports about the condition of the product tested and any imperfections noted, but give no
indication in which way these could be improved. In order for food producers to take remedial action and to further
improve the quality of meat products with more definitive advice, the German Agriculture Society together with the
Institute of Food Hygiene at the "Freie Universität Berlin" has suggested the development of the programme summarised
below. This body of work describes the experience gained in developing the programme and documents the final results.
The "Information Programme for addressing imperfections in the production of sausages" has been developed to be a
multimedia compendium of "sausage technology". For each of the approximately 160 imperfections listed in DLG?s
examination regulations, suggestions to remedy any imperfections in the manufacturing process are offered. This
multimedia textbook was conceived for the instruction at universities, universities for applied science, vocational schools,
and technical training centres, but also as a practical help for the butcher?s trade and for the meat product?s industry.
The following issues have been experienced during the creation of this programme:
1. As there are approximately 160 individually mentioned imperfections listed in DLG?s examination regulations for
sausages, these were assigned individual chapters. The entire text contains approximately 150 printed pages.
2. Searching for and finding information has been laid out as simply and as userfriendly as possible by a page with
search function and a clear indication of search results.
3. Associated errors in sausage production are listed in entirity and hyperlinked with each other, in such a way that you
can read through them in sequence.
4. Technical terms are also integrated into the text with hyperlinks to their definition, and indeed a complete dictionary of
all technical terms. This "Encyclopedia of Terms" amounts to 12 printed pages.
5. The examination regulations of DLG valid at present, which have been included in the textbook, give an insight into the
process of the quality examinations of DLG.
6. In order to interest as wide a group of users as possible with and elicit a good response, and taking into account
current development within the IT community, programming of this multimedia textbook has been performed in such a way
(in HTML and JavaScript) to allow for both online and offline usage by Internet and CD-ROM.
As the target group stretches from butcher?s apprentices, through students and food technologists to butchers, in the
entire programme a simple, easily comprehensible language without acronyms and abbreviations has been used. Food
technology terms, however, represent key knowledge to be imparted, and for this reason the appropriate nomenclature
has been deliberately included. |
