Supporting students

The food and drink industry relies on getting the right people with the right skills to maintain its knowledge base. We have supported the industry in this for many years. To help attract young talent and raise awareness of the food industry as a career option for scientists and technologists, we launched Ecotrophelia UK in conjunction with the Institute of Food Science and Technology.

We also regularly support university students on industrial placements and studentships, and are delighted that three placement students that we employed during 2014-15 (Jacob Altman, James Huscroft and Rebecca Weeks) have all graduated with upper second class honours degrees this summer. We also congratulate Dr. Flora Challou who received her doctorate from the University of Birmingham this year. Flora worked with our processing specialists on her PhD: Surface Pasteurisation of Food Packages by the Inversion Method before joining us full time.

Now, in conjunction with the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT), we have launched "The Thesis Video Challenge" - a new competition offering food technology post-graduate students around the world the chance to win an exchange programme. To enter, students submitted a video related to original research they were conducting. This year’s winner Amadeus Driando Ahnan, a PhD Student at University of Massachusetts Amherst, will spend 10 days here and experience each of our divisions, focusing on the areas most relevant to his study.