Jenni loves food and cares for quality

5.11.2021

Jenni Ahlqvist started as a quality specialist at Maustaja in June.

Jenni had a clear reason for gravitating towards the industry: “Food. I love food. I like to cook different kinds of foods at home and try out all kinds of novelty ingredients. I wanted to have an education in technology, and food sciences had interesting options for orientation. In the spring, I graduated from Häme University of Applied Sciences as a food processing/research engineer,” says Jenni.

As a quality specialist, Jenni is responsible for the daily quality of Maustaja’s products, approval of atypical products as well as monitoring and developing different quality indicators. She actively follows food legislation and makes sure that the developed and produced products comply with the regulations.

“It is very important to stay in the know, whether it’s about changes in regulations or big events. For example, quite recently ethylene oxide was found in additives and products in which it should not have been. It caused product recalls in Finland as well, but luckily we didn’t have to take measures at Maustaja,” Jenni says.

Jenni likes the versatility of her job and appreciates her co-workers. “We have very good people working here. It has been great fun to work with everyone. Every day here is different. Participating in the auditing process of our quality systems and working with our food safety and quality certificates gives me a panoramic view of Maustaja’s operations. The fact that I’ve had the chance to express myself through quality systems and to develop our whole company’s ways of working from the quality perspective has been very rewarding. There were two of us enthusiastic innovators who started working here in the spring and working together has been great ever since.”

“Food is always a part of my free time, but I also take walks with my Icelandic Sheepdog,” Jenni says and laughs. “During this fall I started the Master of Food Sciences studies in Helsinki because I want to learn more and achieve a higher academic degree. The best thing is that I get to study during work time, which says a lot about Maustaja’s commitment to embrace lifelong learning.”