On Friday 17/5/2024 Greekexports organized its 3^rd training party, the second that took place in Thessaloniki. As also the previous times, Greekexports team sent out the personal invitations to our clients and associates, this time with the use of google forms. The people invited were mostly related to quality assurance, quality, and exports with managerial positions in food production companies.

Initially the training party was supposed to take place in Greekexports offices, but since 60 people confirmed their participation, we decided to move the entire event (training and party) inside the Disco Clube Blue Sky – a decision that proved to be a perfect one!

By 16.00 we all gathered up in one of the two main rooms of the Disco that was reorganized to host our training. The people were conveniently seated in couches, facing the stage where the projection screen was situated.

Training sessions

The first training session was about kosher and we had the honor to have Rabbi Yosef Kaplan, (Rabbinical director of BK) with us that made a welcome speech. Then Thomas Vassaras, CEO of Greekexports, delivered the training in kosher and covered the topics related to kosher origin and rules, kosher market, certification and special needs for production. As anticipated, there were many questions from the audience and the speaker used his experience from more that 100 audits in companies of different food sectors as well his cooperation with late Rabbi Finman and Rabbis Yosef and Yoel Kaplan for more than 10 years to answer them.

Following the kosher training everybody felt a little hungry and therefore we arranged to have a special treat that all love to eat as a light lunch – pizzas!

Next was the extended training on the topics of vegan, vegetarian and (first time in our training) gluten free. Three members of the team of Greekexports did their best to enlighten the participants for those issues. Firstly Natasha Kouzoukaki, Head of Sales and Operations presented the basic rules for vegan and vegetarian as well as the importance of v-label logo in the European and global market. Then Maria Chamilaki, Quality and Certification officer presented the criteria and special needs of vegan/vegetarian certification, as she is also a member of the global checking team of v-label that approves the recipes of all products. Lastly, Menia Tsoumagka, Quality and Certification Officer, undertook the difficult task to enlighten us all about the legislation, needs and specifics for producing gluten free products, which is a new topic also for us.

The many questions that were asked by the audience proved to us once again that there is a very big interest in our field of services, a fact that makes us very happy. Also, after having more that 120 companies certified with v-label and more than 50 inspections yearly that we take part, there are very few questions we would find difficult to answer!

Following the coffee break (that was literally skipped because of lack of time) we moved on to our final presentation for halal certification, that was presented by our honorable guest, Dr Farid Aboud, Lead Auditor of Halal Certification Services GmbH. Dr Farid showed to us the many interesting aspects of halal rules, how it is perceived by the different school of thoughts of Islam, as also the halal certification procedure. And after answering all the questions the audience was ready for the funny part of the night, a night that was (at 20.30) still young!

By the time that the training came to its end, the buffet dinner was already served and we all had the opportunity to enjoy the nice delicacies that were prepared by Miltos, a renowned catering service of Thessaloniki.

Let the Greekexports Master Games begin, was the order given by all participants, as they were randomly assigned to 6 different teams that competed for answering 12 questions related to the topics of halal, kosher, vegan, vegetarian, gluten free and food tribes. Each team was asked to decide on a team name and took its turn (with random selection) to compete against another team.

In each competition two team members were asked to step forward and stand in front of the buzzer. After the question (which was also projected on the screen with a multiple choice of 4 answers) was announced the players (who had to keep their hand behind their back to this point) were asked to push the button of the buzzer. The quickest would state first the answer of his choice and the other could state one of the other answers available.

Two score points were given if the quickest to push the button did answer correctly, whereas the second to answer got one point if his answer was the correct one.

The two groups that had the biggest score played in the finals (“Disco team” vs “Haram team”) and then Haram team prevailed and got the trophies of the master games, whereas the finalists got a medal to remember the night.

All participants also got a certificate of attendance and a GrX party cup to enjoy their morning coffee at the office.

And after finishing the games we all moved into the second room of Disco club Blue Sky and we kicked of the dancing night and had lot-of-fun in this place that looks exactly like we remember the discos from the 90’s. And our DJ did his best to make us remember those nice days that disco crawling was our best fun for the weekend.

By 3 o’ clock in the morning the last ones of us left the dancing floor to head back home, always cautious to avoid potential traffic police blocks!

Unfortunately, some guests that did attend the training could not participate in the games and disco, as they had to leave early. Our thoughts were with them for the rest of the night, because they actually lost all the fun!

We really thank all our guests for such a lovely evening and night and we promise to do the event again in Athens sometime in December (in the 7^th floor venue of FoodOn with Acropolis view) and next year May in Thessaloniki (in Blue sky of course).

Stay tuned for our invitation releases!

 Family photo!

 We thank the participating companies: ALMI FOODS, ARI FOODS, ARIVIA, BARBASTATHIS, BELAS FILOTAS & SONS, BIOEDAFOVELTIOTIKI, CONDITO FOODS, DIM KOMERC, GATIDIS, GRISTIREN, HAITOGLOU BROS, IONIKI SFOLIATA, KREMEL, KOUKAKIS FARM, KALLAS INC, LACTINA, NEKTAR KOURTIDIS, PELOPAC, PINDOS APSI, SOUROTI, THE PASTRY HOUSE, UNISMACK

Listen to our spotify music list with dance music of 80’s and 90’s

Thank you all

from Greekexports Team

Thomas Vassaras, Natasha Kouzoukaki, Maria Chamilaki, Menia Tsoumagka