The Northern Crops Institute Holds First Online Course

The Northern Crops Institute (NCI) recently held their annual Pasta Production and Technology course, online. This course has typically been an in-person course but with the current situation, NCI staff worked to bring the hands-on experience to an online platform.

The three-day course ran from April 28th to the 30th, 2020. Participants of the course were introduced to the fundamental and applied aspects of pasta production and quality. The course primarily focused on traditional dry durum-based pasta, but also included lectures on using alternative ingredients, and working with refrigerated and frozen pastas. Participants also learned about pasta industry trends, die maintenance and design, and the impact that processing variables has on the quality of the final product.

“The NCI Pasta Course is a great course for anyone working in the pasta industry. Industry experts cover a wide variety of topics, from die maintenance to semolina quality to fresh and frozen pasta. It is invaluable to have these experts at your disposal to give advice and help answer any of the participant’s questions.” said Rachel Carlson, a food scientist at NCI.

As mentioned before, this has been the first fully online course that the NCI has ever held. When asked about his thoughts on how it went, program manager Brian Sorenson said, “This course typically has a lot of hands on elements, which is why it has always been in-person. It was a challenge to turn this into an online course, but it ended up to be a big success thanks to those involved. Going forward, we still hope to have our traditional in person courses, but this experience has opened the door for us to look into new online opportunities such as webinars, and additional online courses.”

To view a list of future courses and webinars, click here.