EBC Microbiology sub-committee: New co-chairs

Brussels | As of 20 September 2024, Zorica Borković and Núria Feliu Besora will be co-chairing the EBC sub-committee Microbiology, replacing Mrs Gudrun Vogeser who had been chairing it for the last 15 years.

The EBC sub-committee Microbiology is one of the EBC sub-committees in charge of developing the Analytica EBC, focusing on microbiological analysis. After 15 years of active lead, Mrs Gudrun Vogeser is stepping down as a chair and will remain a committed member. Mrs Feliu Besora, an active member for more than five years, as well as Mrs Borković who joined the sub-committee three years ago, will actively co-chair the group for the next years.

Zorica Borković

With an MSc. of Microbiology, Zorica Borković started her professional career at the Microbiology Department of the Faculty of Natural Science University of Novi Sad, Serbia. During the last 21 years, she has been working in the brewing industry and joined Heineken in 2008. From 2023 on, she held the position of Hygiene Quality Specialist in Shared Support Quality & Technology East HUB.

Throughout her career, she held various roles in the quality department mostly related to microbiology and hygiene. Her areas of expertise include: brewing microbiology; water microbiology; establishing microbiological laboratories and implementation of related laboratory methods; validation of (new) microbiological laboratory methods; auditing of brewery labs; hygienic design of the equipment; verification of the C&D procedures; risks assessment of new equipment/product introduction; microbiological troubleshooting; microbiology & hygiene workshops (face to face & online) with the role of the organizer and trainer and coach; food safety standards.

2017 she became a core member of Heineken Centre of Excellence (CoE) Hygiene in Brewery with lead/support roles on global projects; in 2020, she became one of CoEs Champions in 2020, had short-term assignments in the region from 2020–2022; and in 2021 became certified auditor for Heineken laboratories. In 2022 she became Heineken representative in the EBC sub-committee Microbiology.

On a personal note, she is an avid professional coach (certified by ECA) and highly motivated to support and guidance people (individuals/teams) to become their best version.

Núria Feliu Besora

Núria Feliu Besora graduated as Food Technology and Technical Agricultural Engineer at the University of Lleida (1998–2004). She has a Master in Brewing Science at University of Nottingham (2012–2015).

She started as applied research microbiologist in the R&D department focusing her work on rapid microbiology methods for beer, beer mixes, soft drinks, and mineral water. She was in charge of developing, testing, and validating methods. She was actively participating in granted projects for different topics.

From 2016 to 2021 she continued as a microbiology specialist at the central laboratory of Mahou San Miguel. During this period, she had a lot of contact to the company’s breweries and was deeply involved in implementing microbiology methods. She playes an important role in the definition, coordination, and implementation of the microbiological sampling plans at multiple brewery sites. As a microbiology specialist, she acts as an internal consultant for new development products and participates in microbiological troubleshooting.

More recently, in June 2021, she was promoted to head of the central laboratory of microbiology. During all the time she has been working in Mahou San Miguel, Núria has been responsible for the internal yeast bank.

Throughout her professional career at Mahou San Miguel, she had a close relationship with the EBC sub-committee Microbiology: She has actively collaborated with her previous boss Marta Orive revising EBC methods, doing ring tests, and participating in some method validation, and presented different posters at the EBC congress.

The co-chairs can be contacted via .