The department was established in 1957 as a separate department of preservation (canning) technology at the Faculty of Food Technology (FFT) of the Institute of Chemical Technology in Prague. The department has changed its name several times: in 1966 it was renamed the Department of Food Preservation, in 1991 the Department of Food Preservation and Meat Technology and finally in 2012 the Department of Food Preservation.
The Department of Preservation Technology was founded by Prof. Vladimír Kyzlink. The agenda of the department included general food preservation issues, such as plant materials preservation, especially fruit and vegetable, and processing of products of animal origin (except for milk).
Prof. Kyzling was the founding father and for dozens of years the leading figure in the study of food preservation at the Department. In addition, he focused on preservation of plant origin foods. He taught the main subject, the Basics of Food Preservation, later renamed the Principles of Food Preservation, together with several assistants, including Karel Kopec, MSc., Karel Steiger, MSc., Kamila Míková, MSc., and Michal Voldřich, MSc.; later, Prof. Michal Voldřich took the subject over from Prof. Kyzlink. Recently Lenka Votavová, PhD and the Associate Professor Helena Čížková have been the subject guarantors.
From the mid-1980’s, the field of technology and preservation of plant origin foods was under the remit of Prof. Dušan Čurda, followed by the Associate Professor Jaroslav Dobiáš in the 1990’s. In the recent years, Prof. Dobiáš has been assisted by Rudolf Ševčík, PhD and Aleš Rajchl, PhD in further developing the field and teaching.
Prof. Stanislav Klein was the guarantor of the subject of animal origin food technology (technology of meat, poultry and eggs) from the beginning, followed by Prof. Petr Pipek who has held the position since 1983.
Food packaging has always been a fundamental issue at the Department. Since the 1950’s, the Department has played a pivotal role in food packaging development thanks to the initiative of Prof. Kyzlink. Then Prof. Čurda became the main expert on the subject and since the mid-1990’s the Associate Professor Jaroslav Dobiáš has been the leading figure in this field at the Department. In 2001, the Independent Packaging Laboratory at the Institute of Chemical Technology in Prague was established; the laboratory is accredited by ČIA, the Czech Accreditation Institute, under laboratory number 1316 according to ČSN EN ISO/IEC 17025.
Another major field pursued by the Department is the technology of raw materials of plant and animal origin, which has been guaranteed by the Associate Professor Ctibor Blatný and recently by Prof. Petr Pipek and Aleš Rajchl, PhD.
Analytical and microbiological sciences were introduced in the 1980’s. Prof. Michal Voldřich focused on food analyses as a tool for food processing technologies. Recently Prof. František Kvasnička, the Associate Prof. Helena Čížková and Aleš Rajchl, PhD have been actively pursuing the field of food authenticity and adulteration detection. Miroslav Čeřovský, PhD and Iveta Horsáková, PhD have been working in the field of food microbiology.
Prof. Michal Voldřich placed high emphasis on the area of food hygiene, quality and safety, which are currently studied by Jan Pivoňka, PhD and Naděžda Cahlíková–Kulišťáková, PhD. Since 1996 the Department has coordinated the activities of the 'Training and Consultation Centre for Implementation of HACCP of the Ministry of Agriculture'. The experience gained in the process has been reflected in the content of some of the study subjects and inspired introduction of new subjects, such as Food safety and quality management systems, Fundamentals of food processing management and consumer sciences, which are supervised by Jan Pivoňka, PhD, Rudolf Ševčík, PhD and Naděžda Cahlíková-Kulišťáková, PhD.
The Department has also been facilitating the study of other disciplines, e.g. engineering and economic aspects of food technology. These approaches are developed as a part of the Department’s research and technology projects.