Our school Yusuf Ziya Öner Fen Lisesi organized a school trip to the Organize Industry Site to carry out a project visit of Erasmus + “Mission Possible Health” project of our school on 21.12.2017 with a group of 27 students. The students participating to the project visited a factory named as WBT Agriculture which processes herb and spice and exports these products to Europe and USA. Entering the factory,  we met with sharp odor of sage and thyme spice. The students made observations about how the spice and herbs processing work was done by the agricultural engineer and his team step by step.

First we went to the stockpile (the gathering store) of herbs and spices and observed what kind of medicinal herbs and spices were gathered in there. The students had the opportunity of seeing, smelling and touching the herbs and spices that were stocked in big sacks. The agricultural engineer of the factory  informed the students about what kinds of herbs and spices were brought to the factory, how the plants were obtained and processed and answered the students’ curious questions about all the thingst related to the herbs and spices. Following the information, the students entered inside the factory -the processing rooms- and observed how the plants were processed through cleaning, eliminating and separating the small segments depending on the sizes of the particles by huge and loud machines. It  was really a loud environment. We observed how the sage plant was being processed. After being informed and conducted observations, the students went to the analysis and control laboratory which was another departmet of the factory. The students observed what types of plants were processed, how the characteristics of the plants were measured, analyzed, and controlled depending on the order of the product. The students observed how the fat percentage of thyme was analyzed which was being done at that time in this room.

The agricultural engineer informed that the most exported plants of the factory were bay leaf, thyme and sage. Other plants that they worked on were mint, marjoram, basil, olive leaf, pointed thyme bay, black pepper, myrtle leaf, rosemary, sage, anise, cumin and cumin. It was stated that the processed spices and herbs were put in the big sacks and sent to the demanders who would offer to the consumers by packing them with their own brands.

The project activity was quite interesting for  both our students and teachers. We all observed the plant processing process in the factory and became informed about it. We learned new and valuable information about how the spices we use in our daily life were processed and came to our table and as well as learning which herbs were used in medicine and how they were used. We would like to thank to all the participants of this trip, the owner of the company, the agriculture engineer and the working team  for all these valuable experience and for their contribution to our project.