Certified trainer of EHEDG and member of the Training & Education sub-group.

After studying Chemical Engineering at the University of Twente (1983), he worked at Unilever Research & Engineering as a process engineer and later as a project manager - unit operations Food & Drinks. He was closely involved in laying the foundation of Hygienic Design and in building the first factories according to this concept, which was later converted into the international standard (EHEDG).

He then became factory manager at Hertog IJs and also built a new factory there, the first in the Netherlands with a quality and environmental control system before this became mandatory.

Later, he worked as technical director and eventually as director of Harimex, a company that processed slaughterhouse blood into products for food, feed, and pharma. He initiated a system for hygienic blood collection for slaughterhouses in Western Europe.

In addition to the last two jobs, and since 2004 full-time, he has worked as an (international) trainer in Hygienic Design and consultant for both equipment suppliers and food companies. Since 1993, he has trained more than 5,000 engineers in virtually all areas of food machinery and processing.

After completing his studies in Chemical Engineering at the University of Twente (1988), he worked for 5 years at ECN (Energy Research Center Netherlands).

After a period outside of the technical field, he became an editor at hyfoma.com in 2006 and a staff member at Burggraaf & Partners, specialised in materials that come into contact with food.

Following his studies in Industrial Product Design (2012), Lars worked for more than two years at Burggraaf & Partners as a 3D draughtsman of components as well as complete lines and buildings. Production drawings had to be made based on the drawings. In addition, he has developed a patented system for hygienic cabling.

He then worked at Philips for more than five years as a packaging designer in multidisciplinary teams. Here he worked a lot with different design methods and organised creative design sessions.

Since 2020, he has been working again at Burggraaf & Partners as a conceptual designer of hygienic components and as an advisor to machine builders and food companies.

Frans has studied process technology/engineering and biochemistry and then worked at Unilever for 40 years as a hygiene specialist in CIP cleaning. He has contributed to guidelines, risk assessments for new products, and improvements to components to prevent and resolve contaminations.

As a specialist in the living and killing conditions of micro-organisms, he is able to identify where a micro-organism can reside and grow in case of contaminations, so that the source can be searched more efficiently.