About

About Mattia Di Luca

I’m an Italian food technologist working in quality assurance in Austria. My path went from gastronomy in Valencia to food science, research and – today – beverage quality on a global scale.

My story

I started with a Master’s in Gastronomy and Culinary Management in Valencia, because I wanted to understand food as a whole: ingredients, suppliers, costs and the people who eat it. At Calma Hotels I looked after raw-material and supplier quality, traceability and HACCP, and helped shape the offer of a new gastronomic venue while keeping food cost and waste under control.

Gastronomy made me curious about everything that happens before a product reaches people, so I moved on to Food Science and Technology at the Universitat Politècnica de València. I joined the board of Fornejant Ciència, the university’s food-innovation association, where our team created Ricese and placed third in the Spanish round of Ecotrophelia. An Erasmus year at Wageningen University, a Master’s in Food Engineering and a research internship at IATA-CSIC followed, together with the Honors Degree in Technology Management at CDTM, the innovation institute of LMU and TUM Munich – I was part of its first international class.

Since 2024 I’ve worked in quality assurance at Red Bull, in an international beverage environment: supplier and co-packer compliance, audits, traceability and quality data, together with production, logistics and R&D. I’m a certified FSSC 22000 v7 Lead Auditor and a TÜV SÜD Quality Management Specialist.

The part I enjoy most is where product development meets compliance: turning a concept into a formulation that is stable and safe, making sure the label tells the truth – ingredients, allergens, nutrition, claims – and that the process delivers the same product every single time.

A product is only good if it is safe. Everything else – taste, cost, speed – comes after that.

How I work

Safety first. Compliance is not paperwork: it is the reason people can trust what they eat and drink.
Data over gut feeling. Clear KPIs and good data make quality decisions easier to explain and to defend.
Close the loop. A non-conformance is only solved when its root cause is.
Keep learning. From my first HACCP plan to lead auditing, every step taught me something new – and my home experiments keep me humble.

Skills at a glance

Quality & food safetyFSSC 22000 · ISO 9001 · HACCP · GMP/GHP · internal and supplier audits · NC & CAPA · traceability
Data & systemsPower BI · SAP Analytics Cloud · SAP ERP · Minitab · Excel
Product development & R&DConcept to formulation · shelf life · lab and sensory testing · scale-up thinking · food cost
Labelling & regulatoryEU food information rules (Reg. 1169/2011) · allergens · nutrition declarations · claims · specifications
PeopleCoaching and mentoring · cross-functional work with production, logistics and R&D
LanguagesItalian (native) · Spanish (bilingual) · English (C1) · French (B1) · German (A2)

FAQ

Questions I often get

What does a food technologist do?

A food technologist applies science and engineering to food: developing new products and processes, making sure labels are correct and compliant, and checking that everything produced is safe, legal and consistent. My focus is quality assurance – audits, specifications, traceability and the data behind them – with a soft spot for product development.

What does food labelling compliance involve?

Checking that everything on a label is accurate and allowed: the product name, the ingredient list in the right order, allergens highlighted, the nutrition declaration, quantities, dates and any nutrition or health claims. In the EU the backbone is Regulation (EU) No 1169/2011 on food information to consumers.

What is your level of education?

Two university degrees – a Bachelor’s in Food Science & Technology and a Master’s in Food Engineering, both with a 9/10 average, and awarded as the best student and best graduate of my class and with the Valencian regional Academic Excellence Award – plus an Erasmus year at Wageningen University and the honours programme in Technology Management of CDTM, the innovation institute of LMU and TUM Munich. On top of that I’m a certified FSSC 22000 Lead Auditor.

What is CDTM?

The Center for Digital Technology and Management is a joint institute of LMU Munich and the Technical University of Munich, known for its highly selective honours programme in Technology Management: innovation, product development and entrepreneurship, learned by building real products with real partners. In 2023 CDTM opened its first location outside Germany, and I was selected for that very first class.

What is FSSC 22000?

FSSC 22000 is a GFSI-recognised certification scheme for food safety management systems. It combines ISO 22000 with sector-specific prerequisite programmes and additional requirements. As a Lead Auditor I’m trained to plan and lead audits against it.

Where are you based and which languages do you speak?

I live in Vorarlberg, in western Austria. I’m Italian, I studied in Spain and in the Netherlands, and I work comfortably in Italian, Spanish and English – with French and German as a work in progress.

Let’s talk food quality.

A question about food safety, a project idea, a talk – or just a ciao from a fellow food person? I read every message.

Write to me