The Utrecht Group

In November 1989 a meeting was organized for dairy organizations and institutes active in the field of nutrition education. During this meeting education programs, other activities and areas of interest were discussed.
These discussions were thought very useful by the participants and they decided to have such meetings on a regular basis. This is how the 'Utrecht Group' was established.

Targets

The main targets of the group consist of:

• Exchange of information, ideas and results of education programs mainly directed to opinion formers and leaders.
• International coordination of issues and developments in the field of nutrition as far as milk and dairy products or their components are concerned.
• Exchange of running research projects funded by the members of the group. By doing so priorities for research can be set and research budgets can be spent more effectively.
• Building international networks with scientists from the various countries. Besides the importance of good relations it was thought useful to bring these scientists together in closed workshops in order to exchange and discuss the  latest developments in their research area.

For this reason a workshop was organized in Utrecht, every November from 1990 through 2000.
As from 2001 the workshops were and will be held in May.

'Red Fax System'
During the early years of the Utrecht Group a fax system (red fax) was introduced by which the members of the group could be informed rapidly about very important issues for which an urgent reaction was requested. The ‘red fax system’ still exists, however the information is sent by email in stead of by fax.
In the past this system proved to be very useful.